Interplanetary Defense Empire

by tmb1112

5 years after the defeat of Majin Buu, a new threat appears in the universe that wipes out most of Earth's special forces. Now it's up to Gohan and Trunks to train a new generation of warriors to protect the Earth from the incoming invasion. T for violence, death. R/R

10. Chapter 10

I don't own DBZ.

On two different battlefields, all but two of Earth's fighters were gathered. One of the other two was Chaozu who lay unconscious thirty miles from one of the battlegrounds thanks to his best friend Tien throwing him out of danger. The other had just flared her energy and almost every one of the other fighters still conscious heard her cry for help. Anna! The ten of them thought in the same moment.

Gohan, Tien, and Marron could do nothing to help the young brown-haired girl, as just getting distracted by her energy was enough for Trussir to get the upper hand on Tien. Gohan needed to fly over and intercept the man who tried to follow-up on the attack, and fend of Syria at the same time, for long enough that Tien could fly back into the fight. Marron looked away after seeing Tien fly back into the fight, a feeling of uselessness coming over her as neither Gohan nor Tien took her into account when he was knocked away. Gohan effortlessly stepped in Tien's place for a moment, and Marron cursed in her head, I'm doing nothing standing here! Should I go help Anna? She thought, but when she looked back up at the fight in front of her, she grimaced as she watched blood splash from a wound on the side of Tien's face. No, this fight is uneven enough with three of us. If I leave, I might miss my moment to help. Whoever lets their guard down to try and finish off Tien, I'll get them in that moment! It might be the most important moment in the fight, and I'm the only one who can do it while Gohan's focused on the other!

In the main command base of all the IDE bases on Earth, Trunks snapped his head away from the two officers in front of him who were bloody and panting. He had a single scratch on the left side of his face, and his breathing was calmer than Daryl and Drexel's. The two of them wondered why their enemy turned his attention away, but they charged at him as they had their moment.

Trunks had lost focus, but when he saw them coming in his peripheral vision, he roared, "RAAA!" His aura doubled in size and lightning bolts shot off of him into the equipment all around the T-45's command room. Trunks had not been going full power against these officers, saving it for when one of the top four arrived on him, but there was no time to be taking it easy anymore. His powering-up alone caused sparks to fly off of the machines all around him, and they started exploding while the ship's floor and ceiling cracked.

The two telepathically-linked aliens filled with fear as Trunks turned towards them. He shot towards the more humanoid of the two first, appearing in front of him in an instant. The fight they had was good up until then, Trunks was even grinning during it, but his face was full of seriousness and fury as he swiped his leg straight through Drexel's body. Daryl turned, the brown alien with a wide mouth and horn sticking out of his head fled towards the opposite wall, firing a ball of energy in front of him so that the wall would not slow him down. Daryl's energy blast opened a hole in the wall and he made it outside, only to fly straight into Trunks who stood in front of him in midair. Trunks slammed his left fist forward and punched through the officer's chest, then he ripped his arm out flew off while Daryl was still alive, falling out of the air and coughing up blood.

As soon as Anna made her flare for help, Strax was in the middle of punching forward at an enemy. The purple pterodactyl-looking alien did not know why the kid's fist that looked on target suddenly moved and missed him, but it took the advantage and slashed him with a talon. He knocked backwards with blood flying out of him and landed hard head-first on a rock. Strax had three horizontal gashes in his chest, but he got back up to face the monster in front of him. It had the wings of a pterodactyl, but a more humanoid body standing on its thin legs that looked like his arms and ended in three sharp talons. "Anna," Straw growled, his face pale. He brought one hand up to his chest, and he looked down at the blood covering his palm. He turned his head right and looked into the distance towards his sister. Who are those powers with her? What are they doing so far away from all the others? Did they chase her?

Strax was distracted, his thoughts boggled by the blood loss of his chest, and the wound on the back of his head that he did not notice, though he did feel like his hair was wet for some reason. His enemy took the chance and flew towards him. The enemy was not even an officer, but all of the officers were focused on the blonde woman above and the two black haired children with her.

Dreeve looked down though when he felt a drop in Strax's power. Telling from when the drop hit, he assumed what had happened. He lost focus when Anna made that signal! "Strax!" Dreeve shouted, half to get his friend to focus, and half to try and distract the enemy that just flew at him. The alien saw Dreeve diving, but it decided to kill the other one first and then turn to the second.

Dreeve's eyes grew huge in horror. I'm not going to make- A figure appeared between Strax and the alien. She flew there with a ball of blue light in her hand, and Videl pushed the energy forward into the bird-humanoid who was moving too fast to stop his momentum, crashing into the attack and screaming inside her explosion. Videl, Dreeve thought in relief. Then, his eyes like Strax's widened again in horror, as Videl fell out of the air after throwing her energy. She did not even slow down, she just dropped and hit the ground before skidding twenty feet. "Videl!" Dreeve shouted aloud this time, and he finished his dive only to where she was laying now.

Strax staggered a few feet towards her, a little girl calling out for her mom flew by him, then he stopped and turned his head in the direction of his sister. She only flared it once, and her energy is so low right now. Is that why she only did it once? Is she, hurt? She's surrounded, and she's out of energy, Strax had grabbed his chest again in pain when he took a step, and he brought his hand off again and looked at it to see it was coated in blood. Am I, he thought, and right then, he realized why the back of his head felt wet. Oh, crap- Trunks, he lifted his gaze to the sky, and he watched as his master who was surrounded in a bright golden aura with lightning shooting off flew around 18 and massacred the officers she was having some trouble with.

Umara dropped her jaw in shock as the most powerful officer that she and 18 were working together to beat fell from the air. All she could think about was the sickening crack after Trunks had appeared behind the orange woman and snapped her neck. She was the first, and the others all followed in the next few seconds. Umara's mouth was wide open as the bodies of the strongest enemies dropped around her.

18 turned to the man when he stopped rushing around almost faster than she could follow. "You're expelling too much energy," 18 said. "You don't need to waste it on-"

"Anna's in trouble," Trunks interrupted the android who was the only one who did not feel the cry for help. "Her energy is terrified, and it's right over West City." Android 18 widened her eyes as she looked at the intense look on the teenager's face. Trunks' hair had shot straight up and pushed backwards, waving in gusts of wind that his body was creating himself. The ground beneath them shook from his presence, the trees swayed, and the T-45 was in flames after he powered up inside it.

"She's not the only one," Umara said, and the two older fighters looked at her and then followed her gaze to the floor. Umara dropped her jaw again as the two fighters higher than her in the air were suddenly on the ground with the others, leaving her alone in the empty sky. "H-Hey!" She shouted and flew down to join them.

Trunks landed in the center of the group, and then he threw a sphere of energy to his left. Dreeve and Umara were the only ones to follow the attack's trajectory. They watched as it flew off into the air, curved down past the tree line, and exploded behind some bushes where enemies that had run away were regrouping. Screams filled the night sky, and Trunks felt satisfied as the others in the vicinity all flew or ran off. He did not care about chasing every last one of them down at the moment. He felt Anna call for help. He could see Strax on his knees covered in his own blood. His pupils were in danger, but they were not the only ones.

"Videl," Trunks said, bending down and lightly smacking Videl on the cheek a few times. Pan was on kneeling her mom's side, shaking Videl as the powerful black-haired woman tried to say something. "What's wrong?" Trunks asked.

Videl's face was getting darker blue every second. She had sweat all over it, and she could not get out the word she was trying to say. Trunks lifted his other hand to her face while using the one he was tapping her with to open her mouth. He had pulled out a senzu bean, and he put it in Videl's mouth and helped the weak woman chew. Videl chewed and swallowed, and she smiled at Trunks ready to thank him. As she opened her mouth to do so though, her stomach filled with pain and she let out a scream, "Agghhaa!" It was a weak, scratchy yell, and it terrified the people around her who were expecting her to get all better after that.

Dreeve looked down at Videl in horror. He watched as some burns and scratches on her body vanished, but then his eyes shifted down to her left knee where there was some strange purple coloring around a wound that just sealed itself. The bite marks on her knee disappeared, but the purple coloring only seemed to get worse. "Poi-soned," Videl finally rasped out.

"The senzu didn't work," Trunks whispered. He was shocked. He looked from Videl's leg to her face and back again, and he whispered softer, "The senzu…" His gaze shifted to Pan who had a cut on her left cheek and was only using her left arm to shake her mother as her right looked pretty messed up. "Pan," he began to the little girl, reaching towards her with one hand. He pulled out another senzu from the small brown bag on his side, and he handed her one, then said in a serious tone while she tried to give it to her mom, "Your mom is in danger, and you need to be strong to save her. Now eat that and listen."

Pan and the others all looked to Trunks who was losing the panicked look on his face, returning to the intense, serious gaze of a Super Saiyan 2. Pan nodded at the man who was kind of scaring her, and she put the senzu in her own mouth. Pan felt her wounds vanish and looked down in amazement as she lifted her other arm without feeling pain. "Listen to me Pan," Trunks repeated, and the girl with a furry brown tail snapped her head back up.

"Trunks, Strax," Dreeve reminded, while the boy he mentioned had bowed his head and was murmuring something under his breath.

Trunks darted his eyes next to him, but he turned back to Pan and continued, "You need to get your mom to your Aunt Bulma. You know what my mom feels like, right?"

"Why your mom?" Umara asked. "If that bean didn't work, she should take her to a hospital-"

"My mom is better than any doctor in the world," Trunks snapped, and Umara shut her mouth while Trunks leaned closer to Pan. "Pan-chan, this isn't fair of me to tell you, but your mom's life is in your hands." Pan sniffled and nodded her head, showing she understood. Dreeve would have argued, but he could tell that Trunks was sending Pan for a reason. He knew he had a different job to do. "Avoid all strong energies on your way there, but make sure you go fast. We don't know how much time she has."

I didn't think, it would be, fatal, Videl thought, wishing she could say it aloud, wishing she could say something to her child who had so much responsibility being put on her. She wanted to say goodbye to her child in case Bulma could not save her. She wanted to say goodbye, to both her kids. Videl's eyes shifted over to Dreeve, and he was looking at her face in worry at that moment so he locked eyes with her. Pan was reaching under her mom to pick her up, and Videl's eyes were on the brink of closing, but Dreeve looked into them and saw what she was trying to tell him. "You're going to make it," he told her, and he reached forward and grabbed one of her hands tightly as Pan lifted her up. "You will," he said, and then Pan flew off the ground and away as fast as she could while carrying her mother on top of her. The senzu restored her strength, and Pan was on a straight path for West City.

Trunks finally pulled out his other senzu bean as Pan flew off, and he tilted Strax's head back and fed it to the half-conscious, delusional boy. Strax swallowed, and a second later his head snapped up with a look of sheer panic on it. "ANNA!" He shot off the ground in a white aura, and Trunks reached up and grabbed him by an ankle that he pulled him down with. Dreeve understood as Strax hit the ground why it was Trunks waited until after explaining to Pan before giving Strax his senzu, as it would have been tough to say anything as Strax started screaming at Trunks to let him go.

"Listen to me!" Trunks roared. Silence fell over the enemy main base other than the crackling of the fire from the broken T-45 ship. "At this moment, Gohan and Tien are fighting two of the enemies' four leaders." 18's eyes grew huge at this, her breath sped up, and she wanted to fly off right at that moment. Trunks did not mention her daughter, but before she could shout at him, he continued, "Marron's fine 18! I want to go help them, but Anna's in trouble too. I don't know what happened after I sent her home to West City, but there are enemy powers over West City right now with her, including one of the strongest ones I've sensed in this army. But I can't even go help her!" Trunks continued, and everyone looked at Trunks in confusion.

He turned the other way, and Dreeve felt it next. Umara was confused at first as to why Trunks looked that way, but when Dreeve gasped, she sensed out herself and dropped her jaw again. Strax was too angry to understand what was going on, and he just screamed, "I don't care! I'm going to save me sister!"

"Yes! You are!" Trunks yelled back down at the blond boy. Strax leaned back in surprise at that forceful yell, and Trunks continued in a tone full of anger and regret, "But I can't come with you!" Strax looked at his master with wide eyes, and the others did not like the sound of where this was going. "And neither can 18," Trunks continued, his voice getting lower and darker.

18 spun to Trunks, and although she was preoccupied on thoughts of her daughter, she snapped at the man, "Are you serious? You just said it's one of the strongest powers they have. How can you-"

"I'm not happy about this either!" Trunks yelled at the older woman. "But all the forces that left here and went to the other forward bases we attacked, they've left those bases now and are heading for Gohan and Tien's position. For your daughter's position," he reminded, and 18 clenched her teeth in anger imagining hundreds of enemies converging on her daughter. "But that's not even half of their army," Trunks added, and the others gawked as he continued, "all of the forward bases we didn't attack, every one of their soldiers are heading here right now. Even if we leave here, the next thing they'll do…"

"Is converge on Marron's position," Dreeve said, whispering it with fear in his voice for the girl he mentioned. He knew now why Trunks said that Gohan and Tien were the ones fighting two of the main enemies. Even if that was true, he did not mention Marron because the girl would be the one to face off against all those enemies when they arrived at the forward base. "She can't beat them all," he whispered. Dreeve could sense large sections of the IDE army joining up with each other at different distances away, but there were some already on their way to his master's position, and they would be there soon. "We have to save them!" Dreeve shouted.

"We will," Trunks told the boy, but Dreeve could tell he was not included in that "we." Dreeve looked at Trunks in confusion, and Trunks finally let go of Strax who he had been holding onto since he dragged him back to the ground. "Go together, you too," he told the black haired girl.

"I want to help Marron," Umara began.

"Do what Trunks says," 18 snapped at the girl in front of her.

Umara opened her mouth to complain, and then she remembered the very first thing 18 told her when she agreed to train her. "…If I train you, you will fight with me, whenever I ask, and you will do whatever I tell you. Do you understand?" She had not hesitated to answer the question back then, but at the time, there was nothing she cared about in the world any longer. The person closest to her in the world right now was Marron. The blonde girl had become like a sister to her, even closer. They ate together, trained together, even shared a room. If Umara lost her, she could not imagine going through that pain again. Umara bit down the argument building inside her though.

When the black haired girl nodded, Strax lifted off the ground. He was done waiting. Trunks had let go of him, and he could feel that menacing power right next to his sister's getting even more malevolent, while hers got even more afraid. "Let's go!" Strax shouted, flying away in a streak of white for the other two to follow.

"Take these," Trunks said quickly to the boy about to fly up after Strax. Dreeve turned and saw the brown bag of senzus already in the air coming to him. He caught them and pocketed the bag into his orange gi's pants. He did not argue or ask 'what about you?' Dreeve just nodded at Trunks, then he surrounded in a white aura and lifted off the ground.

Dreeve followed Strax up in the air, Umara right behind him, and they flew after the blond boy who got a short head start. Dreeve stared straight ahead first and thought about a small girl and her mother who were not far ahead of them. Anna's above West City, Dreeve thought as they were raising in elevation while the flew too, unlike Pan who flew low and parallel to the ground to get to the city itself. Dreeve's worry shifted from Anna, to Pan and Videl, and then back to his right where he turned his head. With his head sideways, he could see Umara already looking that way right behind him.

They're getting closer to you Marron. I know you feel them coming, but there's nothing you can do against monsters like those! It's an entire army! Don't be stupid! Don't you dare die on me! She looked back forward and saw Dreeve looking the same way she just was. The boy looked back and met her gaze for a second, and as worried as Umara was, the boy in front of her did a much worse job at hiding it. Ugh, I thought you were the one with the crush on him, Umara rolled her eyes and grumbled to herself, and Dreeve looked back forward wondering what the girl behind him just thought about to look at him like that.

Back behind the kids at the enemy's base, or what used to be their base now that it was reduced to flaming rubble, Trunks ate a senzu despite not having many physical injuries to speak of. He pocketed the other three he had on him, and then he flew up in the air. 18 followed him up, and she said to the young man, "Your plan better work."

"I don't know if it will," Trunks said. He did not apologize, did not meet 18's surprised gaze, but his expression did not show his lack of confidence. "I don't know, whether I can trust those kids to save Anna, or if the whole new generation we've been training will be wiped out. I don't know if the two of use can stop these armies and two of the four leaders. What bugs me most is that we don't know where the other two leaders are, though I'm hoping they just aren't powered-up yet and will be in one of these two armies we intercept."

"Are you sure one of them isn't the one with Anna?" 18 asked as they started flying through the air. She could not fly ahead since Trunks was the one who could sense their enemies, but if she was stuck here with him, she was going to ask all about it. "That large power you felt, it could be one of them."

"It doesn't feel that strong," Trunks said, though he emphasized "that" to show 18 that he really was not over-exaggerating his strength earlier to put the kids on guard. "Not a power that I could not beat, pretty easily as I am now." Trunks' cold blue eyes got darker, and the spiky haired Super Saiyan 2 at max power again thanks to that senzu growled, "I want to go save her right now, but West City is too far away. By the time I get there, save her, and get back, the armies will have overrun Gohan's position from one side or the other. It's how they killed my father and everyone else. They use swarm tactics, and as many of the weaker ones they killed, the more powerful ones just wait for their chance to strike. The other enemies are not weak enough that we can just ignore them either. 18, this is it. If we lose either of these battles, the world is lost."

18 waited until Trunks finished, then she looked back forward and focused on the distance. She knew they would be approaching the enemy any second from how long it took them to travel from the other forward bases to the main base earlier. Before they arrived though, 18 said, "I never liked your father much." Trunks darted his eyes next to him, wondering why 18 was bringing that up now. It angered him, but no more than he already was at the monsters trying to take over his world. 18 continued, "Don't think I like you much either. At the World Martial Arts Tournament, and while I watched you fight Buu from Otherworld, I thought you were just a brat. You were immature, and you got Marron, Krillin, and I killed on the Lookout."

Trunks ground his teeth more as he was reminded of the biggest failure in his life. "So save the world Trunks," 18 finished. He actually turned to her in surprise this time, despite them only being ten seconds away from seeing the enemies who were heading straight for them. "If your plan saves the world, I might reconsider my opinion of you." Trunks watched as the corner of 18's lips closer to him curled up.

Trunks never understood 18's jokes. Her humor was sarcastic and dark, and that was back when she still told jokes years ago. Trunks could not tell if this was a joke or not, but he just looked forward and grinned like she was. "Like I care about an old hag's opinion," he remarked, and just like that, 18's smile was gone. And then the enemies came close enough to see.

The two of them did not stop flying. Dozens of white dots in the distance turned into a hundred as they flew farther. One hundred turned into two, and 18 counted around two hundred and fifty when they got close enough that the back of the enemy army was visible. It was only one section of the enemy army, and it was not even the section closest to Gohan and the others. That group only consisted of sixty enemies though, and this would be the next biggest group to get there.

The army they were flying straight towards was made up of a group of enemies who had left the main base to go to North City. On their way back from the city devoid of both their own fighters and the enemies, they met up with three forward bases' armies on their way back to the main one. They changed the directions of those men though to head to one of the other forward bases that their command center had heard was under attack. There were two Majors in the group and one Colonel who was the highest rank and made the decision to head the direction he could feel the planet shaking the worst from.

Colonel Greuber slowed down as he spotted a golden light and a white one heading towards them. The two Majors behind him were a slim humanoid figure only three and a half feet tall and red-skinned, and the opposite: an eighteen foot tall alien that looked most similar to Earth's gorillas than any other of its creatures. Major Aper even tried talking to a gorilla he had seen in the woods only to be confused as to why it could not respond.

Rickety, the smaller of the Majors, slowed to a stop at the Colonel's right side as he spotted those lights in the distance too. "Are those our men?" He questioned.

The golden glowing light was one Greuber could go a long time without seeing. There was a chance it belonged to one of their men, but the much bigger chance… "Everyone, prepare to attack!" He shouted. Greuber looked more human than most aliens. The skin of his people was dark brown, but so were many of the humans they had come into contact with on this world. The main difference was that he had no hair on top of his bald head, and instead there were ten small holes over his skull in lines of five going back from his forehead to the back of his skull.

The alien army came to a stop and looked forward at the lights getting closer to them and bigger as they grew closer. Many of the soldiers started grinning. Some of them lifted up swords, hammers, or the blasters attached to their wrists. The majority just let out their claws, bared their teeth, balled their fists, or turned into fighting stances.

"Only two of them?"

"They're stupid!"

The grinning enemies started losing those excited, battle-hungry looks. The two figures flying towards them were not slowing down. They did not stop like big army.

"They're crazy!"

"Are they gong to fly right into this army?!"

The man in the golden aura let out a scream that shook the planet below, and his golden aura increased in size. Lighting ripped off of him and lit the forest below in flames, at least the trees that were not ripped out by the roots from his scream. 18 followed Trunks' lead and let out a scream of her own, and she lifted her hands and created yellow balls of light on the ends of them.

Colonel Greuber's eyes grew three times their normal size as he stared at the man coming straight for him. He floated backwards in the air to the confusion and fear of the Majors next to him. "How?" Greuber said, because he saw the face of the man flying straight towards him. He imagined that same face, covered in blood, smirking like an animal as he tore apart Greuber's comrades. Surrounded by a hundred enemies, and he still wouldn't go down. "How are you here?!" Greuber shouted. Hammer crushed his skull! I saw it! We were all injured, Hammer too, every last one of us who fought him! "HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?!" Greuber roared.

Trunks did not understand what the man shouting towards him was talking about. He was only a second away, and he pulled back his right fist while the Colonel in front of him regained his composure and lifted his own fist. Trunks realized it from the look of fear he could see on the man's face as he finally got close. It made him grin all the more menacingly, and made his enemy to get even more afraid. He thinks I'm my father, Trunks thought, and with that thought in mind, Trunks let out a bloodthirsty roar like he imagined his father would have, and he punched forward so hard that when Greuber matched a fist to his, Trunks broke his fingers and snapped the army leader's arm.

"YAAAA!" 18 shouted. She kept flying straight forward but fired sphere after sphere of yellow energy off her hands into the enemies in front of her. Every single attack was the same exact strength as the one before it. The enemies screamed, wondering how she could create so many without running out of energy. 18 fired relentlessly, nonstop, getting all the way into the center of the enemy ranks and then spinning around to fire left and right, forward and behind, up and down.

The sky filled with thirty yard diameter yellow explosions of energy, while Trunks shot around those blasts, his body shadowed by them when they occurred close. Those enemies who were fast enough to be able to see the smirking enemy only caught a glimpse of him before he vanished again. Trunks was moving as fast as he could all the time. Three senzus left, he thought, while spinning his left leg and tearing completely through the body of some small red creature who just landed a punch on his back and made him think about the magic beans. He did not regret giving the beans to the kids, but he started to wonder about the three he still had in his pants pocket. Trunks wore a green gi with a red belt in the middle and a pair of brown combat boots. He had a rip on his left sleeve after fighting the strong officers back at the main base before he powered up, but the cut that came with that ripped sleeve was gone after the senzu.

I can't feel Chaozu's energy, Trunks thought as he kicked another enemy away. He sent an energy blast after the enemy, He's either dead, or his power just dropped really low… or maybe it's low and he's not in the area. Trunks was not optimistic, but he did not want to assume that the small fighter was dead if he had not felt it happen himself. Can't use any of these three myself. Save for Chaozu, Tien, and hopefully I can give the third to Gohan. Marron, survive long enough for us to get there. Trunks was turning to his next enemy coming from his right, but out the corner of his eyes he saw the energy blast he just shot never reach the enemy he threw it at. Is that a gorilla? Trunks thought, turning his attention back to it. He got punched on the right side of the face, and his head snapped to the left. The enemy he took his eyes off of felt like a weakling which is why Trunks turned his attention back without worrying about consequences. "That actually hurt," Trunks muttered as the fist kept pressing into his cheek, like the green alien who punched him was confused as to why Trunks did not go flying away.

A giant gorilla flew towards Trunks who stared into his eyes while grabbing one of his subordinates by the neck and crushing the life out of him. The eighteen foot tall gorilla did not get intimidated though, because he saw the mark on Trunks' right cheek from the fighter's punch, as much as Trunks ignored it. Major Aper flew faster towards Trunks and let out a roar as he did.

Is that a gorilla? Trunks thought again, then he flew up and tried kicking the monster three times his height in the face. The alien blocked with an open hand, and Trunks' eyes widened as the gorilla-alien held back his Super Saiyan 2 attack. It clenched his foot in its right hand, and it swung Trunks down through the air. Slow, Trunks thought, and he leaned forward while being swung down with a pair of purple spheres in his hands. He shot them at the monster in front of him, but right before they hit, Major Aper's wrist flicked and the strength from the wrist flick was enough to send Trunks plummeting half a mile into the earth.

Two explosions rippled around the Major, while Trunks flipped himself right before hitting the ground and landed on both legs. He had to bend his knees far, but he managed not to hit the ground. Trunks snapped his head up and growled as he could still feel the powerful alien's energy inside his explosion, but he could not fly back up and continue fighting, because the pause he had after landing gave all of his enemies a target. Eighty red, yellow, and purple beams of light shot out of the sky towards the fighter who let out a yell and crossed his arms, putting up a strong guard.

18 stopped firing around her yellow beams. The aliens who had been taken out by them first were the weaker ones, and the ones still alive that were able to dodge when she first attacked were easily able to do it now that they had gotten used to the pattern. Two of them even coordinated an attack between her blasts by using another as bait. The bait was the fastest of them and dodged after making himself an easy target, and 18 had to bring her arms up in front of her chest to block the two fists from thin black aliens with skinny arms and legs that packed more of a punch than it looked like they would. Their black faces had no features on them except the slits of white eyes on either side of a small black bump she guessed was a nose.

The aliens from Ninjoha backflipped as Android Eighteen snapped her arms that she blocked with out to punch them, and then before she could give chase, she saw the sky light up behind her as other aliens focused beams on her back. We're spending too long here, she thought as she flew straight up to avoid the blasts. Some flew past beneath her, but half of the attacks shot up to follow her higher into the sky. Marron, are you still safe? Would Trunks tell me if you were? He wouldn't. I wouldn't in his position. If you die, if you die… 18 could not finish the thought. She pushed it from her mind and spun around in the sky, a furious look on her face as she changed directions.

18 sped up as she flew straight down, diving in between the blasts rising to meet her. Some of the beams exploded early in an attempt to hit her, but she swerved and weaved between them too. A few of the blasts were not being controlled by the aliens who fired them but were homing blasts, and these were the ones 18 was going to manipulate. She flew straight towards the enemies who attacked her. The ones who fired the homing blasts turned and flew away, because they had seen this tactic before. Others were not as sure as to what 18 was doing, until she flew past them and then moved in a little so that they were right between her and the blast behind her. Aliens screamed as their own comrades' blasts blew them apart, while 18 chased one of the small green aliens only four feet tall.

It started screaming. "Stop! Why are you chasing me?!" They were flying in between other aliens, and he spun his head and shouted, "Help me! Stop her!" None of them wanted to get in between her and him though, and the ones who did start chasing 18 got nervous looks on their faces. The green alien turned around and saw 18 directing all of her anger at him. "WHAT DID I DO TO YOU?!"

The creature created a green ki blast and fired it at her, but 18's body faded as the attack hit her. The blast went through the after-image, hitting the shocked alien behind it who thought he was right on the blonde woman's tail. A large green explosion filled the sky, and then a hand went through the confused green alien's chest and out his front. He looked down and stared at the still-beating heart sticking out the front of his body. The alien tried to scream as the heart was crushed, but his brain functions stopped working without any blood flowing to his brain, and his head fell back with his eyes still open. "What did you do to me?" 18 asked as she looked down into the open eyes of the alien. She had something to say, but the creature was unresponsive so she just pulled her red-soaked arm out of its chest. "Nothing in particular," she replied, and then she looked up at a cluster of thirty aliens staring at her in fear.

"You just killed my husband, tried to kill my daughter, invaded my planet, oh!" She exclaimed the last part as if she had almost forgot to add something. 18 lifted her right arm to show the pink track suit she was wearing had a ripped off sleeve. "And you ruined one of my favorite outfits."

sc

"What are you doing here?" Hammer growled to his left. The orange giant holding his war hammer over his shoulder snarled at the man standing in the hallway that jut off of the one he was running down. "I told them that I could handle-"

"I know you can handle this," the shorter man in the hallway next to the Hammer's replied. He was shorter than the Hammer, but he was still ten feet tall and covered in large muscles. Unlike most soldiers, he did not have on an orange IDE uniform. He had on the same uniform as the others, but it blended in with the man's natural silver skin color. "But even though I believe you can do it alone, I want to capture one of them alive," Major Gregor continued to the beast in front of him who growled at his response. Gregor grinned at the reaction and said, "I didn't think you would hold back on your own."

"That girl damaged my ship," Hammer snarled, glaring down at the ten foot tall man in front of him. Gregor looked at him with narrowed eyes, and his fists clenched at his sides. Hammer noticed the man's fists clenching, and the bumpy orange beast ground his sharp teeth, then added, "Major."

The higher ranked officer nodded at Hammer. "Good. Take her to me alive. I'll be sure to let you kill her when I get the information I need."

"Grr, thank you sir," Hammer muttered. He knew it was strategically for the best, but he wanted to kill that girl as soon as he found her. He started marching away again, and ignoring the downside that he would not be able to crush her as soon as he found her, Hammer shouted out, "I'M COMING FOR YOU!" He sniffed in a few times, and then he stormed down the hallway faster than before.

Anna heard the shout, and she spun the direction farther from where she heard the man coming from. He would have gotten me already, she thought, while crawling quickly through the vent. If he wasn't giving away his position every few seconds with those screams. Anna was panting. She was only crawling instead of flying which would be a much quicker way to escape, because after sending out her flare of energy for help, she no longer had enough energy to fly. She even found it hard to use her ki sense at this point. Using it required too much concentration, and Anna could only focus on how she needed to keep moving and staying alive.

One other thought was distracting her even from survival though. Those turtle guys, she thought. When Hammer had destroyed the start of the air vent she was hiding in, Anna flew off through it to save herself. She thought he would be right behind her, but she slowed down when she heard him shout, "Fire the damn laser" from all the way back in the command room. Even though Hammer had shouted out that order, the Amphibiorans' kis had headed out of the command room, not back into it. Thinking back on it, she knew, There has to be another way to fire the laser.

Anna cursed at herself as she bear-crawled through the vents. She had enough physical prowess to keep this up even at near exhaustion, but she noticed she was slowing down. The reason she cursed herself though was not because she was getting slower. After she had heard him shout about the laser, she had thought about going back and following the human-sized turtles, but when Hammer screamed, "I HAVE YOUR SCENT," she kept flying and curled up in fear for a few minutes. Even now, after hindsight had set in and she knew that the enemies were still trying to destroy West City, the fear was still with her. Every time Hammer shouted, it gave her a good sense as to where he was, but it also reminded her of when he first looked through the vent at her. When she sensed out his energy to feel that it was larger than she could make hers at her maximum, it reminded her of those glowing red eyes that looked into hers as she scooted back in the vent that tore apart like it was made of glass.

The little brunette girl scampered to the end of an air vent and then looked straight up. She was at a dead end other that going up through a fan above her and to the next floor. Anna reached up and grabbed the blades of the fan, and she groaned but pulled down hard enough to bend two of them out of the way. She made a gap big enough for her to get through, and she pulled the top half of her body up through it.

"FOUND YOU!" A voice roared from directly beneath the vent she was standing in. Anna's head snapped down, and then two arms shot up through the steel of the vent floor below her. The hands larger than her head wrapped around her legs from the knees to her feet and yanked her down in one swift motion. Her arms got snapped up above her head from the position they were in trying to pull herself up over the fan, and they each scraped down against the fan blades that she had only just pushed far enough away from her to fit through. Her chin slammed into one fan blade as she came down and tore off some skin, and her entire back got cut up as she got ripped through the steel vent below her. Her shirt was ripped through by sharp steel, but it would have been a lot worse if the Hammer's hands were any smaller and had not ripped such large holes in the vent already.

As it was though, Anna got slammed down into the floor below the air vent, right up next to a wall which was the reason the air vent above suddenly ended in this direction. Anna hit her back on the white floor, and she let out a pained scream as she was finally able to breath. When he had grabbed her she had forgot to breath from sheer shock and panic, but her first breath was used for an agonized yell as she hit the floor on her cut-up back. "AAAH! EEYAAA!" Anna rolled on her right side to get over the pain, but that just hurt her right arm that must have sprained or something when it hit the fan blade, and it burned as well from getting dragged down it and grinding off a lot of her skin.

When the girl rolled on her side, Hammer frowned and let go of her legs. He looked at the spot below her back on the floor that was all red. "You're so weak," he growled. Hammer was even angrier at the incompetent soldiers they left the Dreadnaught to now, but he was grimacing at his own actions as the girl bled some more on the floor. "Major Gregor wants you alive," Hammer said, and though Anna was still screaming, she heard a name she had heard once before. When she was paralyzed by Ni'bobo, she remembered him mentioning him. Fear of that man torturing her kept her fighting back then, kept her from getting captured. Now though, all she felt was helplessness as she heard it. Her entire body was in pain, and when she lifted her head to look at the man who did most of the damage to her, she could only whimper at the monster four times her height.

Anna did not know what was more terrifying: the beast in front of her, or the aspect that she was about to be tortured. The torture won out and her mind focused on it instead of the monster before her. The monster and the torturer were both scary, but it was the idea of what would come from the torture that made it the worse of the two. Can I hold out? I'll, I'll tell them. I know I will! I'm not strong like my brother, like the others! I'm going to tell them all about our powers, and our families, our friends! I'll give away how many of us there are, who's the strongest and who's weakest, other than me. Tears came to Anna's eyes, while Hammer looked her up and down wondering if the child was going to survive his single attack. If so, he would not be too upset, and he figured Major Gregor would understand since he really was not trying to kill her.

If I'm going to tell them… Anna put her right hand down on the floor, and she pushed herself up despite all the pain her whole right arm was in. She put her even bloodier left arm down, using her forearm and elbow to help push herself up. The reason she did not roll to her left side when she wanted to get off her back was because her left hand felt broken at the wrist, which was the reason she had to use her arm from her elbow to her wrist, since she could not move that hand. A glance down at it and she saw it waving around without her trying to move it, making her sick to her stomach. If I'm going to give up my brother… She lifted her blue eyes to Hammer's dark red ones, and then the girl leaning halfway up snapped her body up so she was on her knees. Snapping back like that made her entire back scream in agony, and she loud out a loud, "Ahh-AHH AHh!" She panted over and over after getting to her knees, then she opened back up her eyes that she had clenched in pain, and she lifted up her right arm at her side.

I was wrong, Hammer thought as he looked down at her. This girl, is not weak at all. She looked on the verge of death to him. He expected she really was. Despite it, Anna lifted her right hand and pointed it up at him, a blue light glowing on the front of it. Hammer did not move. Seeing the strength of the blast the girl was forming, he did not expect the blast to make him flinch. Anna's lip quivered at the sight of the Hammer's confidence. He had his hammer leaning on the wall next to him, and his arms were down at his sides in a calm manner. Humans, he thought, as he examined the small girl in front of him. Hammer was surprised by the girl's tenacity, by her ability to take out his fellow soldiers despite their training and abilities. Is she weaker now after that fight? Even if that's true, she cannot be much stronger than they were. Still, seeing this girl lifting her right hand despite all the pain, seeing her glare at him despite all her fear, and seeing her form a blue ball of energy despite her own exhaustion, it made Hammer think there was something strong about her.

Anna's lip trembled even more. Was I wrong? Hammer thought, as the girl's right arm shook and she started lowering it.

I can't, Anna thought. I won't! She bent her right arm in at the elbow in a single quick motion, putting the blue light in her hand right under her own chin.

No, Hammer's eyes grew wide. I was more right that I thought! "Hold on," he growled. "You don't want to do that."

"No, I don't," Anna sobbed, but she held the ball of ki beneath her chin anyway. She made sure she had no guard up at all, no protection from this attack she was charging at her own head from point blank. "But I- I don't want, to tell you, anything!"

It's not even in fear of the torture's pain? Hammer's eyes grew even wider. But fear of what she herself will give up because of it? Hammer took a step away from the child. Wait a second. I can't let her do this, he thought, and aloud said in a deep voice, "Alright, I won't do anything to you. If you're that against it…"

Anna clenched her teeth. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to lower her arm and just leave. In her head she saw Ni'bobo surrendering to her though. She believed it when he put his hands up and gave up, and she paid the price for falling for that deception. I won't let my friends pay the price, because I fell for another trick. Anna pushed the blue ball up against her skin, and she winced and stopped when it started to burn the open wound under her chin from when she got pulled back through the vent fan.

Strax, I'm so sorry. Please don't blame yourself. Hammer saw the girl's eyes stop shaking, her lips stop trembling, and the blue ball steadied over her palm. He took a step forward with huge eyes, reaching out for her with his long arm to grab her arm. He was too late. Anna opened her mouth and yelled at the top of her lungs, "HAAA-"

CRASH! The wall behind Anna only a few feet away smashed apart, and a piece of it hit the girl in the back and made her arch it in pain. Because she arched her back, the girl's head snapped back too, and the blue ball of energy she fired off her palm passed in front of her bloody chin instead of through the bottom of it. Hammer would have felt lucky that the prisoner did not manage to blow herself up, if someone else wasn't breaking his ship! "WHO HAS THE BALLS?!" He yelled into the debris flying at him while lifting the arm he was reaching forward to guard his face from it.

Anna's head had snapped back with wide eyes, and she stared straight up through the majority of the debris that flew above and not into her. Inside that debris was a boy with blond hair, screaming with his fist pulled back, "AAANNNNNAAAA!" He punched his fist straight through a chunk of the wall in front of him, and his fist kept going out the other side of it, right over the crossed right arm of the thirteen and a half foot tall monster behind it. The Hammer's thick arm covered up most of his face except his eyes so that he could see past it, so he was able to see the fist that came through a rock and slammed him right in his right eye.

Strax had so much momentum and force behind his punch that the alien he hit with it lifted off the ground and flew down the hall. While it was still in the air, Strax brought his other hand towards his punched-forward fist and opened them both up into palms. He curled his fingers and made a bunch of different hand movements, all while yelling, "AAAHHH! BURNING ATTACK!" He slammed both of his arms straight out, and using his full energy thanks to the senzu bean he just ate, he created the largest attack he had ever made that flew down the hall towards the giant monster who let out a roar as it hit him. Out of the explosion the monster went flying even faster down the hall until he slammed into the other end of it at an intersection that only went left or right. A new way to go was opened up though, as Hammer smashed straight through that wall thanks to his huge mass and the high velocity he was flying at.

The eight year old boy dropped his arms to his sides and panted over and over after putting all that energy into an attack. The monster he felt next to Anna when he was still far outside the ship was too strong to go anything less than all out though. He looked down while he was panting, and everything else in his mind blanked. He knew he had gotten there on time, but knowing that his sister was alive he never took a moment to really look at the girl. He looked down at Anna's face, the tears streaking out of her eyes on either side of it, the blood all over her chin and dripping off. "B-B-Big, brother," she gasped out through sobs, the tears spilling out of her eyes fast now.

"Anna!" Strax yelled, dropping to her side on his knees. She started to fall backwards, but he put his arms behind her to catch her. When his arms touched her back, Anna's face filled with pain and Strax felt his arms get wet. Strax did not waste time looking at what his hands just touched. He snapped his head up and yelled, "Dreeve! Sen-" A small green bean flew through the air at Strax, and he snapped a bloody hand up and caught it.

Anna looked up and behind her, where two other figures entered through the hole in the wall. Dreeve glanced down at the girl and winced at the sight of her. His head lifted back up though and he stared down the hallway with a dark look. The girl who came in next to Dreeve looked down at the brown haired girl and frowned at the girl who was sobbing loudly now that the two of them arrived. All Anna had tried to hold in, because she was the only one there, because she couldn't rely on anyone else to save her, it all came pouring out. "Get a grip, will you," Umara muttered, though her focus shifted down the hall to the smoke from Strax's powerful attack.

Umara was amazed at the attack Strax made after barging straight into the ship. Dreeve had suggested making a strategy, but Strax tore straight through the walls in the shortest path to get to the man hurting his sister. She had called him an idiot from behind, when he shouted his attack name and made a blast that she doubted her power could come close to. The annoyance over knowing he was stronger than her only increased with the younger girl's sobs, and it increased even more because of the powerful ki she felt down the hall through the smoke. She was keeping herself annoyed to make sure fear did not take over as the primary emotion at the feeling of the ki up ahead of her. No one's going to save us. They're leaving that monster up to us. They're chancing the fate of the world, on our ability to beat this monster together.

Anna sniffled after what Umara said, and she chewed the senzu her brother put in her mouth. The bean never tasted good before, but even through the pain of chewing, she had never thought anything in her life tasted better. Her back sealed up, the gashes on her arms repaired themselves, and her energy returned to her body. She could feel her left hand, and it did not feel painful as she moved around her wrist and wriggled her fingers. Anna stayed on her knees after she swallowed the bean. She stared down at her hands, and she could not stop crying as she looked at her right that had a ball of blue light on it a minute before. I would be dead, if not, for them, Anna lifted her watery eyes to her brother who did not know why she was still sobbing after he had come. In fact, she only started sobbing after he came, and they did not sound like sobs of joy. Anna sounded like a little girl crying at the top of her lungs, and Strax whispered, "Anna, come on. You're all better, stop it. We need to face this guy," his voice was soft and reassuring, but his head snapped left and he looked down the hall as he heard a loud crash in that direction.

"He's coming," Dreeve said, lifting his arms up into a fighting stance. He dropped down on the other side of Strax and Anna, between the kneeling siblings and the monster. The smoke in the hall had faded, and he could see at the end of the hall through the hole in the wall there was a silhouette on his feet again.

Umara landed next to Dreeve but back a step and to his left. She looked over her shoulder and snapped, "Get up Strax. Help us." She turned to the girl who just got a senzu and who had a power similar to her own, "You too! Stop crying and get up!"

Strax looked at Umara and then his sister again. He stood up and stepped forward on Dreeve's right side, though he stepped up even more than Dreeve did. Anna lifted her head and could not stop the tears as she looked at the backs of the three of them. The two eight year old boys and the nine year old girl faced the monster stomping towards them, and the three of them got similar looks on their faces as she had when she first saw his scary appearance. Anna pushed down harder on the floor beneath her and stood on shaking legs. She rubbed her eyes, but she whimpered and sobbed, letting out gasps when she tried taking deep breaths.

"Geez," Umara muttered as she heard the sobs of the girl behind her getting closer like Anna had stood up. She stood in a fighting stance, and she said, "If all you were going to do is cry, why'd you even come up here?"

"Don't be too hard on the girl," Hammer growled as he walked forward. The monster's sense of smell was great, but his sense of hearing was almost as good. The orange beast looked past the three closest to him and to the girl behind the center boy. "It seems it would have been for nothing anyway. Those you were trying so hard to protect, they're all going to die here anyway."

Anna's mouth quivered and she clenched her eyes shut. "What are you talking about?" Dreeve shouted down the hall.

"We're not dying here!" Strax yelled.

The Hammer looked at Dreeve who seemed to catch something strange in what he had just said. "That girl behind you," Hammer said in a deep voice. "Was a second from killing herself to avoid torture, all to protect you."

Strax, Dreeve, and Umara opened their eyes as wide as they could get. Anna let out a sob behind them, a pained, agonized sob. Umara's bottom lip trembled as she tried to imagine what that must have been like, and she cursed herself for those things she just said. That six year old- Anna, was going to… She felt so afraid. That ki I felt, that's what was strange about it. The others knew, but I had never felt anything like that fear before.

For us? Dreeve thought, his fists clenching tighter in front of him. Anna, if Strax had listened to me and we came up with a plan, you would have died. You would have died, killed yourself, to avoid torture? Why would he say, 'to protect you' though? She didn't do it because she was afraid of the torture? She must have known! She knew she would give us all up! Anna! Dreeve trembled, feeling a rage that was even greater than what he had felt that morning.

Strax was the only one who took his eyes off the enemy. He looked back to the girl who was sobbing behind him, and he thought about the moment he broke through the wall. A ball of energy had left his sister's hand, but it did not hit the monster in front of her. It flew straight up in front of him between him and the beast he was going to punch. It flashed by, and now Strax looked at the girl behind him with a quivering lip of his own. He did not know what to feel. He was angry that she would try doing that and leaving him alone. He was scared because he was almost too late to save his sister. He was worried about how she was feeling because of the sobs and what she must have gone through mentally to reach that point. The four foot two inch tall blond boy turned his head back to the monster in front of him and picked one emotion to go on. Hatred.

"I'm going to fucking kill you," Strax snarled at the monster that kept marching towards them at a steady pace. It was only ten meters down the hall now, and all three of the children lined up to stop him surrounded in white auras. Strax's aura flared the largest and most wild of the three. He balled his fists so hard that blood dripped through his fingers, and Anna saw the blood drip out and hit the floor at his sides.

Anna stared at her friends all powering up to stop the Hammer. "W-Wait!" She shouted. She stopped her sobs, and she stopped the Hammer from walking any closer. The three in front of her did not look back with the enemy so close at hand, but Hammer coming to a stop confused them as it seemed like he wanted to hear what she had to say. Anna shivered at the sight of Hammer's eyes boring into hers, but her shout was not really meant for him at all. She meant it for her friends, and she continued because she knew she had to, because she was the only one who knew. "There are others on the ship. They're, going to fire the laser on West City!"

"You're kidding," Umara whispered. That's why they're here?! Why West City? How'd they know?

Strax thought about the people in Capsule Corp. below. He thought about the woman he had called his mother for over a year now. He thought about the little girl with bright blue hair who called him "big brother." He thought about Bulma's parents, who he thought of as his own grandparents. All of the pets in the gardens, all of the people of West City, and his sister behind him. Strax's flaring aura got even stronger, the floor and walls shaking from its power.

Dreeve thought things similar to Strax when he heard what Anna had to say. He knew Videl and Pan were down at Capsule Corp. to have Bulma try to save her. They had known from back at the main base that there were enemies in West City, but everyone had assumed they were after Anna. No one had guessed that the Dreadnaught would be there, and because they were so focused on Anna, Dreeve never had the time to question why it was above the city. He stopped thinking about all the people down below though in a single moment when Strax powered up even more next to him. That's crazy! I've never been that strong…

I have to keep my head. Dreeve's furious look faded.

"It's true, but your little friend damaged my ship," the Hammer growled, emphasizing how the ship was his own. "If the computers in the command center were still functioning, it would only take them a few seconds to calibrate and charge the Dread laser. Now, we have to do it manually," he said, and then a furious look came over the monster's face and it bared its sharp teeth at the humans. "No one, damages my ship. On dozens of conquests, I have kept this ship in peak condition. All of you will pay for what that girl did, and I'll kill you last so that you-"

"Strax, Anna, I'm leaving him to you." Dreeve interrupted the man in front of him who stared at the black haired boy in confusion as to what he just said. Strax and Umara glanced in at the boy in the middle too, and Anna looked at the back of Dreeve's head in fearful confusion. What if they can't- No! I can't lose faith in myself because of what just happened. If I had made a plan before rushing in here, Anna would have died. But right now, if I don't do this plan I came up with, everyone will! "Be careful," Dreeve continued. Out the left corner of his eye he could see something leaning up against the wall. "I'm pretty sure this guy is 'The Hammer' that God mentioned was guarding the Dreadnaught."

"That God mentioned," what the Hell? Is one of their comrades' name God? Or, do they really have a God on their side? The confusion Hammer felt kept him from responding to the mention of his name by the kid in front of him. It would make sense, as to how they know my name, and how they can stand against the IDE.

"What are you going to do?" Strax asked the boy next to him, though his aura continued to rage around him. He glanced out the corners of his eyes, and Dreeve held out a small brown bag for him to take.

Strax grabbed the bag, and Dreeve said, "You used a lot of energy with that first attack, and if he's strongest, you're going to need this."

"Dreeve, what are you doing?" Umara snapped.

Hammer was glad he was not the only one confused. If the enemies were all being confusing then he would have been a little nervous, it would have made him think they had some sort of plan, but instead it just sounded like one of them was acting weird by the other's reactions. "We can't wait," Dreeve said. "If we had waited to come up with a plan before rushing in here, Anna would be dead. Time is of the essence, always. If we stay here to fight Hammer, even if all four of us beat him, we might be too late to save West City. Umara, come with me," Dreeve spun around and flew fast back the way they just came from, the opposite direction as Hammer.

"Wh- wait- what?!" Umara shouted, spinning her head back, then spinning forward again. Hammer was not as flustered as she was, though he was furious. He had shot forward when Umara made her first turn back, and when she looked forward again she stumbled backwards at the sight of the monster flying straight towards her.

Strax understood what Dreeve said though. Although he had ignored Dreeve when the boy mentioned thinking of a plan outside, this time the other boy had already thought of the plan and he was fine with going with it. It was thanks to your strategy that we beat Zeke. You put me and my sister in danger again with your stupid plan, but I believe in you Dreeve. You picked me to fight him and left to stop the laser yourself not because you're afraid. Strax let out a roar and leapt up in the air at the monster trying to fly right past him at rapid speeds to chase Dreeve before he got too far away. You picked me because I'm the strongest! Strax slammed his fist up into Hammer's stomach, and Hammer slammed his left fist down at the boy indented into his gut. The larger man did not stop flying when he was hit in the stomach, but when his punch across the front of his body missed, he snapped his head down and looked at the blond kid who pulled back just far enough to evade his punch.

Strax grabbed his own right wrist with his left hand, steadying his arm as he put another huge amount of power into a ki blast. He let out a scream, and he fired the blue beam up into Hammer who had stopped moving above him. Hammer moved both his hands down when only using one proved not enough. Even with two, he was pushed up into the ceiling. Hammer let out a yell and he pushed the energy sphere up above his head, but as the blue ball lifting over his face passed it completely, his red eyes grew huge right before both of Strax's feet slammed into his face, slamming him so hard into the ceiling that they ripped a hole through it.

Umara watched the hole rip in the ceiling, then she felt a tug on her shirt and turned her head. "Go," Anna told the taller, older girl.

Umara looked down at the girl with dried tear streaks on her face. Umara lost the shocked look from Dreeve's shouts, from Hammer's charge, from Strax's incredible power. She spun around to face the hole that Dreeve flew out of and lifted towards it. As she flew up though, she glanced back and whispered, "I'm sorry, Anna. Be careful."

Anna sniffled and nodded her head without looking back at the girl behind her. She knew what the apology was for and was glad to hear it, but the warning was something she already knew. Anna flew off the ground and up through the hole above her head as some debris from it hit the ground where she was just standing. She flew up to the next floor, and she spun to see her brother go flying across the room in midair cartwheels. He slammed into a counter and broke right through it, crashing back into some stoves and ovens on the other side. They had entered into some sort of mess hall, on the eating side between a few tables and the counter where aliens could go up for food.

The Hammer flew after the boy he just sent into the kitchen, but a girl floated up in front of him and made him stop short. She looked at him in fear, but her fists raised anyway and she turned her body sideways to get into a fighting stance. Two fingers of her forward fist curled up, and her back fist closer to her side opened up with all her fingers curled forward as her hand twisted to the side. "You," he began, but he stopped himself. He had grown interested in this child, she was an enemy he wanted to talk to during the fight, but the Dreadnaught was full of invaders. Four enemies had entered his ship. The Dread laser had not yet fired from what he could tell. The invaders were a direct obstacle in their plans.

He had to clear the path.

"I'm not going, to let you," Anna began, holding back her tears and ignoring for the moment what happened before her friends rushed in. She stopped shaking, and she finished in a shout, "Destroy my home!" The girl rushed forward, and she swung her right fist at the giant. Her fist was coming for his face, and then Hammer saw her left leg move. He knew the punch was a feint, and he reached his left arm up and caught Anna's leg as it swung towards him.

Hammer slammed Anna into the floor twelve feet below where he caught her. She hit the ground and bounced up, her back arching as spit flew out of her mouth. He's so much stronger, than the others, she thought, then her eyes widened as she saw a fist coming down towards her face. Too fast! Anna thought in horror.

"Hi-YAA!" A voice shouted behind Anna, and Hammer stopped punching down to snap his gaze up. His eyes grew huge, and then the blast of yellow light slammed into his face, followed by a barrage of small yellow spheres colliding into him on all parts of his body. Dozens of baseball-sized spheres of yellow light hit him in the shoulders, the chest, the legs, and the face in the next few seconds, each of them making him skid back on the floor until he hit a wall of the mess hall.

Strax finally put his hands down after firing one last blast. The final attack was bigger than the others, more like the first one he used to stop Hammer from punching Anna. She turned and looked at her brother in amazement to be able to use that much power, while Hammer smashed back even harder into the wall with the final attack and smashed through it. This time he was back up on his feet in only a second though, and Hammer shot through the wall with a look of rage and confusion. How did that brat get back up? How did he use so much power?! Hammer stopped when he saw Strax standing on one side of the broken counter he was smashed through a minute ago. The kid's wounds from their initial bout were gone, and the boy was not even panting as much as he was when they first clashed. What the… Hammer's gaze shifted back to the small girl closer to the middle of the room than her brother, and he realized that the blood he could see on her chin was all dried, and there was no wound under it. The child was panting, but she stopped after a second, and she surrounded in a white aura.

"You were on death's door," Hammer growled at the girl. "Hmm," he hummed, and he shifted his gaze back to the older child. He has a way to heal. If she had the ability too, she would have used it before he arrived. He showed up and she healed. I hit him and he heals. "Whatever method you are using to retain your health and stamina," Hammer snarled at the humans. He lifted his left foot, and then he stomped down on the floor below him while the other two watched in confusion. "I'm tired of it!" He yelled, while the floor beneath him cracked and he fell through it.

The two were surprised that their enemy was seemingly running away. They could each feel him though, and Anna turned around while Strax flew forward. They flew to the hole Strax initially pushed the Hammer through, and the two of them flew back down to the hallway below. As they flew into the hall, the two shot to different sides of it, because something came flying up at the hole and them. Strax and Anna flew apart, but they looked towards each other and watched the thick end of the Hammer's hammer swipe between them. They shot backwards, so they were near the hole Strax punched through the hallway's outer wall when he first arrived. Hammer stood beneath the hole in the ceiling, a sharp-toothed smirk on his face despite missing his first swing.

The children eyed the Hammer's weapon with nervous gazes. No one said a word, but the mood of the battle shifted. The look of confusion that was on Hammer's face when he mentioned Anna's injuries, it made both of the siblings feel confident that they could beat him as long as they kept healing when they could. Strax frowned at the weapon that barely missed him. If that had hit, it would not matter what guard I have up. That'll break bones, it'll crush my skull if it gets a clean hit. I have to be careful of Anna, his gaze darted to his little sister who looked more nervous than him on his side. I feel heavy after that last senzu too. If I need another one, my stomach will hurt too much from being full. I'll have to deal with it if the injury is too bad, but with that hammer, I might not even be able to take one next time I'm hit. In that case… "You think you've won now that you've got your hammer, Hammer?" Strax asked his opponent. "You think we can't heal if we get by it? Maybe you're right," Strax admitted, then he turned back into his fighting stance. "Then, I just won't get hit."

"Me either," Anna said. Her brother's confidence was contagious and she turned sideways herself.

The kids' bright blue eyes glistened, and Hammer finally noticed the resemblance. Anna had brown hair and her brother had blond, he was a little taller than her, and Hammer could not tell the difference between most humans anyway. In his mind, they all looked alike. Yet right now, looking into their eyes, he knew they were blood. "I'll kill your brother first," Hammer said, keeping his voice deep and dark. He looked into Anna's eyes, "That will be your punishment for damaging my ship. I'm not very creative," Hammer added, while he smacked the shaft of his hammer into his other hand a few times, making loud slapping noises echo through the hallway every time. "If Major Gregor was here, I'd ask the First Fleet's Punisher for some ideas. Too bad he's probably guarding the laser."

Anna and Strax dropped their jaws and opened their eyes wide. The fleet's punisher? Strax thought, his heart rate speeding up. Dreeve!

At that moment, a power surged on the other side of the ship. It was stronger than the other four energies on the Dreadnaught not part of the group of three in the hallway right now. He's as strong as the Hammer! Anna thought with worry over her face as she glanced to her right.

Hammer took the moment the girl turned to charge. Strax already knew he had to look out for his sister though, and he shot forward to keep Anna out of his hammer's range while she was distracted. Anna snapped her gaze back in surprise, only to see the end of the hammer pass two feet in front of her face after Hammer swung it at her brother. Strax ducked under the weapon, but he was relieved that he got far enough forward that Hammer had to swing before Anna was in range too. When he ducked the hammer, he kept flying towards the monster and punched him in the center of his burnt orange uniform, only for Hammer to elbow down into the top of the kid's head.

Strax slammed into the floor, but his knees bent and he unbent them fast, shooting him up between Hammer's arms so he could uppercut the alien under the chin. The Hammer had lifted his gaze to Anna after elbowing down on Strax, as the girl put her hands in front of her and charged an attack of white ki. He was not expecting the punch under the chin so soon, and his head snapped back, right before he got hit in the upper chest by the energy blast, right below his softer neck but only inches away from somewhere it would have caused a long more damage. Anna frowned a shaky lip as her attack knocked the monster back but missed the vital area she was aiming at. I have to kill him if I have the chance! He'll kill Strax! He'll kill me right after! How did I miss?!

Hammer straightened back out, and he swung his hammer across the front of his body, making Strax fly back to escape its range again. The two of them glared into each other's eyes, and Strax realized at the sight of them that Hammer was taking him seriously. The monster's hands tightened around his weapon's shaft. It surrounded in a dark red aura that made Strax's entire body tremble at the feeling. He could see the battle damage starting to form on the enemy though. Maybe in a fair fight, I wouldn't have won. I just had another senzu though. I have Anna as support. I'm going to rip this guy to pieces! Despite his shaking, Strax grinned madly and his aura grew larger again. "Try to destroy my city? Kill my sister? I'll destroy you!" Strax yelled, his high-pitched child-like voice still sounding like a serious threat to the monster over three times his height.

"Many have tried," Hammer growled back. "All have died by my hands, or my hammer." He slammed his weapon down on the ground on his left, leaving a large indent in the steel. He snarled and started running forward, tearing the weapon through the ground next to him while he did and making sparks fly up above it. "You will be no different!" Strax flew towards him, and Hammer swung his weapon up diagonally across his body. The boy spun in the air to dodge it, and Hammer let go of the weapon with one hand. The length of his hammer was so long that even though Strax got past the end of it, he still had twelve feet to go before he reached Hammer, enough time for his enemy to swing a fist right into the boy's path while holding his hammer out to the side with his other hand. Hammer's left fist flew forward and Strax punched his own right.

Their fists collided in the air. A shockwave flew out in all directions, denting the walls out on either side, denting the floor down, and cracking the ceiling. Anna crossed her arms and skid back in the air. Strax opened his mouth as he felt the powerful force pushing against his arm, making him lose all his momentum. "RaaaAAAAA!" He yelled. His muscles tensed and the white aura around him flared. Hammer's flat lip curled so Strax could see the monster's clenched teeth it was snarling through, pushing back against him harder and making its red aura grow. "RRRAAAA!" Strax yelled, pushing even harder, and then Hammer let out a roar too, and the two of their auras completely filled up their side of the punch. Clear white flames pushed against red, and the entire ship shook around their collision.

On the other side of the ship, everyone felt the shaking caused by the collision in the other fight. Umara and Dreeve were staring forward fearfully at a man who looked to be made of steel. His uniform had turned the same color as his skin too, indicating that it was as hard as the rest of his body. Every step he took made the ground clank with a sound of metal on metal. He stood before the children, while a green tortoise-like alien stood behind him. The alien had blood coming out of his bumpy nose, and it said in a scratchy voice, "Major Gregor. Thank you."

Holy shit! This guy, he's… Umara thought with huge eyes.

Damn it, Dreeve thought, while steadying his balance from the shaking ship under his feet. He rubbed the side of his face with his arm, and he grimaced at the pain he felt from just doing that. He caught us off guard, but now that I feel his power, he must not have been powered up when he hit us. Did he know that we would sense him coming if he did? Dreeve did not like the confident, calm look of the grinning ten-foot-tall alien in front of him. It did not appear concerned that there were two enemies in front of him, not at all like the Amphibioran who Dreeve and Umara had shocked by their initial appearances.

"Get back to the manual controls, Corporal," Major Gregor ordered, turning his head away from the kids to say it to the soldier behind him. Dreeve and Umara would have usually attacked an enemy for taking his eyes off of them during a fight, but the casual way in which he did it made them feel like he was not concerned at all that they would attack. They thought that he was being either overly cocky, or he really was just that much better than them. Even if it was the first option, he turned back a second later and continued to grin in a smug way, and now the kids felt like he had a reason to as well as they just let an opportunity pass them by. They had proved that his confidence was deserved, and everyone standing there knew it.

The Amphibioran did not even argue about the kids' strengths. At the feeling of confidence exuding off the Major, he felt his commanding officer could handle this without a problem. He turned and flew back through the doorway behind him that no longer had a door on its hinges. He had managed to bring the fight away from the central processing core of the ship, but he had to get back in there if he was going to manually charge the Dread laser's cannons. The IDE soldier flew over a metal bridge that went over a hundred foot drop. The drop itself would not be so bad, if the huge open area beneath the bridge and in a circle around the core was not full of electricity so strong that lightning bolts were zapping all over the place. The central core itself was a thick steel tube in the center of the room with a platform surrounding it as wide as the narrow bridge leading to it. On the insides and outsides of that circular platform around the core though, there were computers with levels, switches, dials, and different kinds of scales and meters all over them showing how well the ship was running. The soldier was not an engineer and rarely came to this room, which was a main reason he was having trouble figuring out how to charge the laser when the kids showed up.

Dreeve looked past his enemy and saw the alien turtle flying through the open area past the strong steel door he and Umara had kicked down together. We should have gone all out before this guy got here! If I had given it everything I had, I could have destroyed that thing in there. Now we have to get past this guy!

"Which one of you would like to die?" The alien over twice either of the kid's heights asked. Umara and Dreeve stayed silent. They did not know how to respond to that strange question. If he had added 'first' at the end, it would have sounded like any other cocky thing an enemy would say before a fight. "You see, I am what many in this fleet have nicknamed, the fleet's Punisher." He chuckled at the name, and with a smile on his face he continued, "It's my job to find out all about our enemy from, old-fashioned methods." He punched his right fist into his open left palm in front of his chest, making a sound like someone slamming a metal baseball bat into a telephone pole. The clank rang out around them, and then the steel man cracked his neck to either side, making more loud clanks as he did. "So when I ask which of you wants to die, I'm really offering you the choice to choose the better option here. Now that you're here, I know Hammer will kill the others and use your presences as an excuse, so I need one of you to be tortured."

Umara took a step backwards. This guy's insane! I thought all the aliens were like this, but, but hearing this aloud, it's crazy! This guy- this thing's a monster! It looked into her eyes with eyes that were fully the same color silver as the rest of his body, and Umara felt afraid like she never had before. The two options before her were each horrible, and her eyes darted either direction looking for a way out.

"Neither of us are going to be tortured," Dreeve responded. "Die, or be tortured? You're forgetting an option," Dreeve stood in a fighting stance, and he finished, "We kick your butt."

Does Dreeve, Umara thought, looking at the boy next to her with wide eyes. He doesn't recognize him?

"It's decided then," Gregor said, turning from Dreeve after he said that to the girl on the boy's left. "You'll be the one I torture."

Umara froze where she stood, and her eyes narrowed. Her teeth clenched and she glared into Gregor's eyes, surprising the steel alien. "Why me? You think I'll crack?" Umara sounded offended, and she spat to her left at the thought of it. She balled her fists, and she took what Dreeve just said seriously. All the rage she had built up since her parents were killed, it was rushing out of her and making her look angrier every second. Umara thought about where she used to direct that hate, and where 18 told her to redirect it all to. "Hate them. Hate them to their very core. Train harder, and harder than you ever have before so that you can teach them when they arrive…"

Umara snarled and a bright white aura surrounded her. "You're going to regret ever hearing of the planet Earth."

Dreeve was surprised by Umara's sudden burst of confidence and power, especially because for a second there he was worried she was going to run away and leave him to fight this monster alone. As she stood in a fighting stance next to him though, Dreeve's breathing sped up. His eyes darted over Gregor's shoulders then back to the alien, then behind him again. The reason Gregor did not keep attacking after getting that first hit in suddenly made sense to the boy staring at him. Why would he wait for us to get ready like this? That's not what he's doing. He's, he's stalling for time! Even if he thinks he can win, he doesn't want to risk, risk us getting through that door! What are we doing?! After I left Strax for the same reason! "Umara!" Dreeve shouted.

The panic and hastiness to Dreeve's voice did not make sense to the girl who thought they were about to attack together. Did he finally- Umara began to think.

"Get behind him and stop the laser from firing!" Dreeve shouted. The fear of the new enemy in front of her and then the hatred she directed towards him made the girl forget all about what they were there for. Umara's eyes snapped open wide, and she saw the confident grin on the enemy go down a little. "West City might only have minutes, seconds even! We have to save it!"

"You're an idiot," Umara snapped. Dreeve glanced at her out the corners of his eyes in surprise, and she yelled, "There's no way you can beat him." She did not care that she was letting the enemy know that, she did not care how bad that was in strategic terms, because she did not plan on leaving him here. "I'm not leaving you here to die. He'll be right behind me, and without your help he'll kill me too! The only way we do this, is together!"

"Will you listen to me?" Dreeve yelled back. "It's the only way!"

"The only way to get us killed!" Umara snapped back, while Gregor started grinning at the children again. Her aura flared some more and she stood in the best fighting stance she could as she prepared to attack. She knew that once she charged him, Dreeve would fly in right there with her. She saw it happen when Strax ignored him and flew into the Dreadnaught earlier. Her feet were about to leave the floor.

"It's not about us!" Dreeve shouted. Umara froze, and her eyes stayed frozen straight forward. "If we waste time on him, they're going to shoot the laser and blow up West City! Thousands, millions of people will die in an instant!" Umara's heart raced faster, and her face covered in sweat at what Dreeve was yelling at her. "I don't know why you decided to fight these aliens!" He yelled. "But I did it because I wanted to save the world! We are Earth's last heroes. I don't know, if you're fighting just to satisfy your own anger or what, but those people down there are relying on us! Millions of people are in danger, so it doesn't matter if we don't have a chance of surviving! All that matters is that we win! I left Strax and Anna behind, even though they could die, so that we could save West City. They put their faith in us, and if they die, and we let West City get destroyed anyway," Dreeve clenched his eyes shut, and then he yelled, "Their sacrifice will have been for nothing!"

Umara's hands shook in front of her. Major Gregor was no longer smiling after what Dreeve just shouted. He saw the look on the black haired girl's face change at some point during that rant, maybe even from the first thing Dreeve shouted. It isn't about us, Umara thought. All the anger she was using, the rage she was fueling her aura with, it faded away. I'm not, doing this because of my parents, not anymore.

Umara's calmed aura grew larger again, but this time it was not flaring as wildly as when she was about to attack a few seconds ago. I searched out Master Roshi because I wanted to get stronger. All I wanted was revenge for my parents. I had lost, everything. But while I was getting stronger, while I trained, I found a new family. I found a sister, a grandpa, friends, and, and I found a new mother! "To protect the people I care for," she whispered, "and the things, they care for," she said, her voice getting louder as her feet lifted off the ground. Gregor took a step back, not in fear of the children, but to get closer to the doorway to fully block anyone from getting through. Dreeve lifted up next to her, and Umara yelled before flying forward with him, "That's why I fight!"

"Then go!" Dreeve yelled, and he sped up at her side so he was flying faster than she was. He flew straight towards the enemy who was almost as tall as the top of the doorway and whose muscular body blocked most of it. There were no gaps large enough for Umara to fit through, so Dreeve flew in first towards the left side of his body where Umara was heading towards. He wanted to make Major Gregor, as the other soldier called him, lift that left arm to stop him and thus open a hole for Umara to squeeze through.

Gregor saw through the plan the second Dreeve started cutting across his body though, and instead of moving his left arm, he brought up his left knee in a fast movement that Dreeve almost did not see coming. Even though he saw it coming up at him though, Dreeve could do nothing but put his hands in front of his stomach where the huge knee was about to hit him. His small hands could not hold back the powerful knee though, and it slammed through his defenses and up into his gut, knocking him into the air.

Umara knew where the hole Dreeve was trying to open was, but she adapted when Gregor lifted his leg instead of moving his arm. She shot down towards the gap at the bottom left corner of the door. She sped up as fast as she could, but Gregor stomped down after kneeing up faster than she could get through. "Close one," Gregor said, his foot on the small of Umara's back, pressing her into the ground while the girl screamed in pain under his foot.

The Amphibioran at the control console was pushing a lever up with both of his hands. He had finally found the right machine to charge the laser, and as Umara got her back stomped on, she heard a loud beeping echo through the wide chamber right in front of her face. The girl opened her clenched eyes to looked through the room she had already seen once when she blasted the doors open. Blinking red lights turned on above some of the machines, and a low buzzing sound got louder from inside the core. The Amphibioran who figured out that step spun his head to the door right before Umara looked up, because he heard the scream come from almost inside the core chamber.

Umara's deep blue eyes looked down the bridge and into the slanted thin eyes of the IDE soldier. It looked at her in surprise, even if there was a foot planted firmly on her back, because the girl dug her hands into the floor in front of her and pulled. Her face looked strained with veins popping on it as she tried her hardest to drag herself out from beneath the Major's foot.

Gregor kept his foot down on Umara's back, but he was getting nervous at how hard she was trying to pry herself free and keep going forward. He wanted to lift his foot back up and stomp down again, but if he moved his foot for even part of a second, he knew she would fly right past him. All he could do was press down on his left foot harder, but that put him in a certain predicament for the boy in front of him who rebounded off his knee without looking like he took much damage.

The black haired boy was in front of Gregor, punching and kicking over and over. His arms and legs were a flurry and Gregor was moving his hands faster every second to keep up with them. He just keeps getting faster, Gregor thought. The boy was open to kicks, but Dreeve was doing that on purpose. If Gregor lifted either of his legs, Dreeve knew Umara could escape. Gregor tried head-butting forward, but Dreeve was not going to make the mistake of trying to match the heat-butt with one of his own, not when his opponent's head was made of steel. Dreeve eased his head to the right, then he brought an aura-coated fist up hard under Gregor's snapped-forward head. Dreeve felt the skin on his knuckles rip open, but he kept pushing up with the uppercut and let out a scream as he did, "AaaAAAHH!" His arm felt like it would tear off in every muscle, but Dreeve's punch pushed up, and the pressure on Umara's back got lighter.

"Not a chance!" Gregor yelled, bringing up one of his fists into Dreeve's stomach, then spinning sideways and reaching back with his other arm. He caught Umara by the back of her shirt, as the girl just escaped from beneath his foot.

"Ah," Umara gasped as the collar of her shirt pulled against her throat. "Raa!" She yelled. The aura around her became more solid, hotter, and her shirt tore right off. Umara had on a tight white undershirt on below that she was very thankful for at the moment, because she would have ripped through her outer one whether or not she was decent under it. Umara spun as she flew right through her shredding black shirt, and she threw a ball of purple light off her right hand at the monster who snapped his head towards her in anger.

The ball of energy hit Gregor right in his face, and the alien's head snapped back with a cloud of smoke around it. Gregor lifted off the floor to fly after the girl before he had even shaken off the hit. He knew he could not let her into the core, but when he lifted off the ground, two strong hands clenched down on his right hand's right. Major Gregor spun his head the other way to see the kid he punched in the stomach was not hanging limply over his arm like he thought the kid would be. Dreeve had his arm gripped in a forceful way with both of his own hands, and the boy's head had lifted up with a trail of blood going down from the left corner of his lip to his chin. "HaaaAAAA!" Dreeve pulled as hard as he could to the left, and he swung the alien that just lifted off the ground to his left side. He kept swinging until Gregor was on the opposite side as the door, then he released towards the wall behind him, throwing a man who weighed what felt like a thousand pounds at a hundred miles per hour.

Gregor did not stop flying at the first wall, nor the second. His body was too large and heavy, and the kid who threw him was much faster than the Major thought he was. When Gregor finally stopped his flight after smashing into the third wall, he glared through the holes of the last two all the wall to the hall the boy was still floating in. What was that girl talking about? She said there was no way he could beat me, and she was right, but she made it out like they were weaklings. Major Gregor ground his teeth and made sparks fly out of his mouth while Dreeve flew towards him, through the first hole, then stopping in the second. The kid was blocking the hole like Gregor had been doing to the door into the core a few moments ago.

"I do not want to kill you, young human," the alien made of steel began. "As I said before, I am Major Gregor, the Punisher of the First Fleet!"

Earlier he said it was a nickname the others gave him, he seems like he likes it, Dreeve kept himself calm by psycho-analyzing his opponent. It made him feel better to think he was not up against a monster since he could understand the alien. As much as fighting monsters would make it easier to kill them, they scared him. Every one of the enemies he was facing, they scared the hell out of him. This was one of the most terrifying of the aliens he had fought. He was as afraid of Major Gregor as he was of the shadow alien who invaded over a year earlier, back when he was much weaker. Ever since he saw what the aliens could really do, his training only got more intense. Gohan no longer had to push him to his limits, because every day Dreeve made his own training regimen harder. All that training though, all the strength he had obtained, and he still could not get over the simple fact that he was fighting death matches against scary monsters. Given, it was a high hurdle to get over, but he hated himself for it every time he found himself shaking in front of an enemy.

"I don't want you to kill me either," Dreeve said. "I'd also rather not kill you. So why don't you just get off the Earth?"

"Do you really think that's an option?" Major Gregor questioned the kid, wondering if the boy was serious with that.

Not really, but if it keeps you here for another few seconds, then what the hell? "Why not?" Dreeve asked back. "I'll never give up my friends, even if you torture me. You'll lose. Your invasion will fail."

"A lot of people have said, 'never,' to me before," Gregor said, a smile spreading on his silver face. Dreeve felt chills down his spine. "When I ask, 'where are your leaders hiding,' they say that they'll never tell me. When I ask them, 'how many people are in your army,' again I always hear 'never' in their responses. The word 'never' gets thrown around a lot. And when you've heard it as much as I have, and when every time you hear it, 'never' turns out to be 'very, very soon,' the word sort of loses its meaning." Gregor flew forward, and he called out, "You will tell me what I want to know!"

Dreeve flew backwards while leaning his head left to dodge the fist. The fist that flew over his right shoulder came at him so fast that Dreeve's eyes shot open wide. Major Gregor's face moved close to his as his arm went past, and the two of their faces were passing only a foot apart. A fist moving that fast, he's not trying to capture me! "You aren't the only candidate for torture on this ship," Gregor reminded at the horrified expression on Dreeve's face.

He was tricking me! Dreeve thought as he flew backwards more. He saw Gregor glanced towards the hole in the wall on his left, and Dreeve panicked and flew towards it. Instead of racing him for the hole though, Major Gregor headed straight towards Dreeve, and the boy spun too late to stop the swinging leg from hitting him in the side. The kick was so strong that Dreeve lost rational thought for a moment. He felt a rib or two crack on the hard-as-steel leg, and then he flew off the kick right into the wall next to the hole back towards the original hallway they were fighting in. The wall he hit broke easily, widening the first hole to twice its size.

Dreeve hit the ground and bounced, and when he lifted back in the air, he coughed and saw blood splash up over his face. He flipped himself backwards despite the pain, and he kept floating in midair instead of dropping to the ground again. He winced, his eyes half-closed from the pain, but he focused his vision forward on Gregor as the man followed him through the hole with fists raised in a boxing stance. The grinning torturer bobbed his head down and to the left, then he bobbed it to the right, and then he closed the distance between him and the child fast and jabbed the kid in the left side of his chest.

"Gah!" Dreeve gasped, more blood splashing over his mouth as he actually did bend around Gregor's fist this time. He flared his aura and punched up even though he was bent over the enemy's fist, but Gregor did not move his head. The kid's fist did not have enough force in it to hurt him, and Gregor started laughing as Dreeve let out a scream as his other hand's knuckles got ripped up this time. Dreeve floated back off of Major Gregor's fist and landed on the floor, then he stopped with a glance over his right shoulder. Dreeve realized he was standing in the same hallway he started in, not far from the door to the core. "Ah ha, ah hah," Dreeve panted, while turning his head back to the enemy and looking into his eyes.

"I suppose it's time I finish this," Major Gregor said, and he cracked his right hands knuckles into his left palm. He grinned at the sound of clanking metal that rang out with every knuckle he cracked. Dreeve took a step back, but the kid put his hands back up in a fighting stance and stood firm on the ground after only that one step. "You've got heart, little human," Gregor said. "Too bad I'm going to have to rip it out. You see, there's another nickname those in the First Fleet sometimes call me."

Another nickname, Dreeve thought, trying to calm himself down. This time though, considering what the man's first nickname was, and the scary threat he made right before mentioning the second nickname, for some reason the thought of the nickname did not calm him at all.

"The Executioner," Major Gregor finished. He would have flown forward right away, but he wanted to see the kid's reaction first before he did what his name suggested. The kid's face did not fill with fear though. Dreeve's face confused Gregor, because the kid had scrunched it up and furrowed his eyebrows for some reason.

Wait wait wait wait. No, of course not. Umara, she, did she recognize him? She, she looked at me, that weird way. No no, I mean, Dreeve shook his head around.

Well that's new, Gregor thought, not remembering a time he had ever gotten this reaction out of an enemy solely by saying a nickname. He decided to go with it, "On these conquests, the Commander has acknowledged my skill for getting information from our enemies. As a reward for my good work, I'm permitted to kill my prisoners after they've given me everything. Everyone was so impressed by the new, creative ways I found to kill someone every time, that the Commander decided to let me be the Executioner too! He sometimes likes to order these executions, you know? In order to get the native population under control…" Major Gregor's voice was turning into a dull hum in Dreeve's head. The kid could hear his heart pounding in his ears. Blood dripped off his fingers from his ripped knuckles, and more blood dribbled down from both the corners of his mouth. His mouth was full of the taste of his own blood.

"Have you," Dreeve began, his voice soft. Major Gregor stopped talking, and he was not bothered by the boy's interruption. Instead, it intrigued him. He looked down and listened close, while Dreeve looked up into his eyes. "Done that, on this planet?"

"Oh yeah," Gregor replied. "A couple of times actually. Humans just don't seem to know when the fight is lost-"

"You killed my father," Dreeve whispered. His eyes were wide, and his own breath caught in his throat after he said it.

Gregor's eyes opened wide too, "Huh?"

He killed my father. "Apparently, your father wouldn't surrender to the invaders and…"He killed my father. "Your mother was killed with the rest of your people, your father…" He killed my father! "…his death was not as quick." A translucent white flame surrounded Dreeve's body. His eyebrows narrowed down in towards his nose. His eyes filled with a fury greater than anything Umara had shown earlier. Everything he had told her about fighting for the people of the world, not for their own hatred, it went right out the window. "My name, is Dreeve Cardan," the boy began, as his aura got larger around him and the floor beneath his feet started to shake. "I, am the Prince of Restaria. The son of King Hove!" Dreeve got louder as he spoke to the point that he was screaming, and the walls shook with every word. Dreeve clenched his bloody fists and did not care that his skin ripped even more. He glared into Major Gregor's eyes and screamed, "The man you killed!"

Major Gregor looked around at the shaking walls, then he looked back to the child whose disposition did a one-eighty. The ten foot tall alien curled his lip and lifted his eyes to the ceiling. After a second he looked back down at the enraged boy, and he said, "Who was that again?"

"RAAAAA!" Dreeve screamed, kicking off the floor and punching his right fist forward. The smirking alien gasped and spit flew out of his mouth as Dreeve's fist lodged in his solar plexus. The alien's upper half bent forward and his legs came forward as well while his center pushed back. "AAAAHHH!" Dreeve screamed, slamming his next fist forward this time. He punched his left, then his right, without caring that punching something that hard was tearing all the remaining skin off his knuckles. His fists ached in pain as he bashed them to a point of near brokenness, but the boy did not stop, and his punches did not get weaker. He flew forward the entire time he punched, left then right then left over and over through two holes in the wall and then four others that they made right then. Walls were not going to stop Dreeve, but every time Gregor's back hit one the alien winced or oofed and could not get his bearing enough to stop the kid from continuing his flurry of blows.

He killed him! He was there! My father, my mother, my entire kingdom! All the people my father wanted me to one day rule. I promised him I would return one day when he died, to take over his kingdom! That was a promise to protect our people when he was gone, but he's gone, and all our people are too! Tears came out of Dreeve's eyes, but he turned that rage and regret into power, letting out a roar and making the aura around him even stronger. "DIE!" Dreeve screamed after the roar, slamming both of his fists forward into Gregor's chest, then opening them into palms right as they collided. His giant aura flared, and he screamed at the top of his lungs while a bright white light formed in front of his palms. There was no space between his hands and the man in front of them, so the energy Dreeve was gathering was being flattened between the two of them, until it pushed Gregor forward and rounded out to look more like a sphere of light.

Major Gregor's eyes opened huge and he let out a yell of pain, as Dreeve fired the largest blast he had ever created at point blank. "YOU BASTAAAHHHH-" The blast exploded on his enemy only a few yards away from him, and the explosion slammed into Dreeve with about half as much force as if he were the one the blast was directed at. His scream was changed midway and then cut off when he flew backwards off of it and hit the ground back through the last hole in a wall he had created. Dreeve had driven them more than halfway across the ship with his flurry of punches before firing his attack. The wall dividing the central large bedroom he fell in that was likely meant for one of the higher-ranked officers, and the hallway he had just set off his attack in, was shredded by his energy a second later as was a large section of the room, the ceiling, and the floor of the hallway.

The ship shook from the explosion worse than it had shaken when anyone inside it had powered up. Dreeve got up inside the chambers of one of the IDE officers who really seemed to like the color yellow from the look of the painted walls (the ones still standing), the carpet, and the bed sheets. He kept his fists clenched at his sides, blood pouring between his fingers faster now after he opened up several more wounds with his last barrage. The backs of his hands had ripped open too, as did his palms, though his palms were bleeding from how tightly his fists were clenched. Dreeve panted and glared into the smoke of his explosion. The ceiling above his head was cracking more and pieces of it fell down, and there was a huge hole in the floor out in the hall stretching into the room he was in. The wall separating the hall and the room was so weak that large portions of it broke off and fell down into the hole below, but while those chunks fell, something else rose out of there.

Dreeve's eyes widened, then narrowed in anger. He growled at the large, dark silhouette in the smoke. The figure swiped his arms to the sides, and the smoke around him dispersed. Dreeve glared forward at the ten foot tall man whose skin was no longer silver but a dark gray. His eyes had gotten darker with the rest of his skin and his clothes, and now there was a visible gray aura surrounding him too. Major Gregor was no longer smiling. He glared down at the child in the room in front of him, and the boy glared right back up with his brownish-green eyes. "Now," Gregor began, his voice deeper and darker like his skin. "It's time for you to die."

"I will not fall here," Dreeve remarked back. "I am the last Prince of Restaria. I will avenge my people! Against your Commander, I believed that I could not win, but against you," Dreeve lifted his bloody fists and uncurled them into his usual fighting stance. "I will not lose."

sc

"Tien!" Gohan shouted as the three-eyed man behind him was surrounded by a massive explosion. The sphere of blue light in the sky where the Admiral of the enemy fleet just fired a beam got larger and larger, filling the sky with his energy. The trees in the forest below were torn out of their roots and thrown into the distance by the force, at least the ones that were not shredded by the massive blast. It could be seen for a hundred miles in every direction, and Gohan's eyes grew wide as his comrade came flying out the bottom of it, covered in burns and motionless.

Something was flying for the front of Gohan's face, and the young man snapped his arm up without turning his head. Gohan's right hand caught the red fist that was swung at him, and he spun his head to glare at the young woman who attacked him. He was in Super Saiyan 2 already, his hair spiked up and waving around, lightning sparking off of his body, but the woman in front of him did not look afraid. She appeared younger than he did, but he kept that thought out of his head as he snapped his other fist over to hit her in the face. Syria leaned her head to the side, and her darker red hair that was almost brown flipped up behind her. She snapped her other fist forward, and Gohan let go of her first one to grab that instead. He brought back his punching hand and used it to catch her right fist again when she threw it, and then Gohan let out a gasp and his eyes shot open wide.

Syria smirked at the man in front of her, the man whose neck her long thin tail just wrapped around twice. She squeezed her tail around his throat and Gohan gasped. He let go of Syria's hands to reach up and grab her tail, but she opened up her fists that he released and interlocked her fingers with his. Their arms shook as Syria leaned forward, pushing Gohan's arms to the side so that she could ease her body forward. Her tail tightened more and the veins on Gohan's neck and face became more defined. His skin was getting paler, and Syria leaned in more so her face was right in front of his. She smirked, and then said, "You looked just like him, so I was cautious thinking you would be as strong."

Gohan's bloodshot eyes opened wide, and he tried to respond but no air could make it up his throat. Losing air. Losing consciousness! Have, to, move!

"But you are no Son Goku," Syria continued to the man whose face was getting blue now.

"Syria!" a voice shouted from behind her.

Syria started to turn her head, but she was too late. Her bright green eyes grew huge, her tail started loosening around Gohan's neck as she pulled her arms back, but her tail was wrapped too far around to pull back in time. The sharp yellow disc of energy that just flew across the sky slammed into her tail halfway down it, and Syria let out a screech as it sliced right through it.

I did it! Marron thought, pumping her fist mentally. Externally, she spun her head to a man flying straight towards her. She gulped at the sight of his angered look, and his speed was no joke. She had just seen him overpower Tien, or at least she had tried to watch as the short blue Admiral around her height kicked the three-eyed man's butt. Marron lifted her arms up, but the look of fear was impossible to take off of her face at the sight of the much more powerful enemy charging her. Then, as Trussir was only ten meters in front of her, a figure appeared above his head and Trussir snapped his gaze up at the shadow in his peripheral vision. Lifting his head only made it so Gohan's left elbow hit him in between the eyes instead of on top of his skull.

Trussir dropped out of the sky like a missile until he hit the ground that was already much deeper than it was a minute ago thanks to his own explosion. Gohan glanced to a different part of the crater, and he thought in relief, Tien's alive. He then turned his head to the blonde girl in front of him, "Thanks Marron. You really saved me there." Marron's eyes grew wider at the praise from the strongest man she knew. Gohan then turned while still in front of her, and he glared across the sky at the woman he flew away from while she was grabbing her tail.

I had the chance to finish her off, Gohan thought, though he did not feel regret over it. If I had, I may not have been in time to save Marron. I don't know if she really understands the gap between her and these two. Luckily she knew to use the Destructo Disc, her dad's best attack. Gohan would have grinned at the thought of it, but his expression got very serious when Syria turned his way. Her power spiked even greater than it already was, and the man he elbowed into the ground was getting back up as well. "We knew that these four were stronger than anything else the army could throw at us," Gohan said to the girl behind him. "Now get back, I'm going to go all out."

Marron did not hesitate to fly back through the sky, making a gap of over sixty feet between her and Gohan. Syria was flying towards him, but she slowed down when she heard what he just said. "Oh, were you holding back?" She questioned the blond-haired man. Her face twitched a few times, and her eyes darted over his shoulders towards the girl behind him who caught her glare and felt chills down her spine.

"Your enemy is here," Gohan told the woman.

"My tail would argue differently," Syria hissed back, and the half of her tail that remained waved to her left side where some purple blood dripped from it. "But I'll humor you first, before I murder that girl," Syria glared into Gohan's light green eyes, but he did not flinch at her words or her glare.

I wanted to save this in case the Commander showed up, but I can't beat both of them without going to the next level. I don't know if they're holding back anything, but I'm going as strong as I can get. There's no going back now! "You think I look like my father huh?" Gohan asked. Syria mentioned that the man looked like him, but she still grinned to hear that this was Son Goku's son. "Well, if you saw him, then I guess you saw this too." Gohan's elbows pulled in to his sides, and he hunched his body forward while yelling, "HAAAAA!"

It felt like the atmosphere changed. The air filled with pressure and a huge jolt shook the planet below. Trussir rose to Syria's level, and then he brought his arms up in front of his face to protect from the high-powered winds coming off of their opponent. Syria did not lift her arms, too busy staring forward with eyes as big as plates. "Can it be?" She asked, then she had to lift her arms too as the force became too strong and pushed her back.

Marron flew farther away as bolts of lightning flew towards her. Tien lifted his head while laying on his back on the ground, and he stared at the golden light in the sky that was so bright that it no longer seemed like night. The forests, nearby mountains, everything for thousands of miles was illuminated by the glow. Cracks formed on the ground around Tien, trees that were still standing in parts of the forest that did not get touched by Trussir's blast were falling as the ground beneath them ripped open into huge ravines.

"That man! He's going to destroy the whole world!" Trussir shouted. He looked left where he heard a thunderous crack, and his jaw dropped as a mountain in the distance cracked down the middle.

Syria could not take her eyes off of the bright glow of the man in front of her though. She spoke while watching his hair start to extend, "This is really it!" She sounded excited, exhilarated at what she was seeing.

"This is what?" Trussir yelled at her over the wind and the shouts of pain and intensity from the man in front of them.

Gohan's hair extended back behind his head and got longer as it reached down his back. He kept yelling, while his muscles bulked to a point that they were pressing against the fabric of his orange gi. The ends of his blue belt waved around while his belt was forced looser thanks to Gohan's waist widening. His jawline became more rectangular and defined, his hair larger behind him with spikes coming off in all different directions, and every part of his body bulked up. His eyebrows vanished but it looked like muscles took their place and narrowed in to make him look more intense, and angry.

"This, is the transformation that took our King to defeat," Syria replied, and Trussir's blue face turned purple. "Ever since the day I saw it, five long years ago, I understood how large the gap between myself and the top really was."

Marron stopped shielding her face and finally lowered her arms. She looked towards Gohan and dropped her jaw at the sight of him like she had never seen him before. If she was not there when he started transforming, she did not know if she would have been able to say it was him with confidence. His energy had changed drastically too, skyrocketing to a point she had felt only once before from across the world. Feeling it now, from this close, it did not matter that they were on the same side, Marron was trembling. "Uncle, Gohan?" She whispered from a hundred feet behind him.

"How could you let him transform, Syria?" Trussir questioned the woman he flew next to. "If you knew he was going to do something like this? If you knew he would get to a point we can't defeat?"

"Because," Syria replied, and then around her body appeared a purple aura that grew exponentially in size over the next few seconds. Trussir stared at the woman next to him with wide eyes as the planet beneath them started shaking again. That mountain he saw in the distance that cracked when Gohan powered-up, he watched as it crumbled, falling into pieces. The cracks on the ground got even larger, the pressure in the air became all the more unbearable, and the three in the area who felt like the tide of the battle had just switched in their favor, felt very, very nervous.

Tien, Marron, and Gohan could all feel Syria's power. Gohan did not remember seeing this woman during the battle in space, yet as he looked at her now, he knew one thing for sure. She was not this strong back then. I didn't feel anything this powerful during that fight. I suspected that the Commander was been holding back when he killed Mr. Piccolo, but we wouldn't have done so much damage if there were others who were this powerful in their army. Then, she became this powerful over the past five years? Gohan wondered, his heart rate speeding up despite the powerful new transformed state he had taken. Of course, they were not just sitting still while we prepared for them. To have gotten this strong though, this girl is crazy!

"Syria," Trussir whispered. "You really think, you can take this man?"

"I know it," Syria replied, and then she shot forward in what was a blur to the man next to her.

Marron could not even see what had happened, but one instant the red woman floated next to her ally, the next moment she was in front of Gohan with her right fist punched forward. Gohan had met her fist with his own, and the Super Saiyan 3 pushed against the woman's arm, bending it backwards. "You may be strong…"

Ten shockwaves rippled around the sky above where they just floated with their fists connected, and then Marron saw their legs connected at the knees a hundred yards above her. "But you can't feel my energy, and I can feel yours! I'm still stronger that you!" Gohan spun his other leg around at the woman who looked furious at what he shouted, but when she kicked her other leg to match his, Gohan's leg stopped in mid-swing. Syria's leg kept going, and then as it passed right in front of her, a fist came out from behind it aimed right up at her face.

I didn't think it was possible, Trussir thought as he watched the Commander's chosen Second get slammed in the face by a fist of a man who looked like a God to him. Someone who obtained a transformation on a level worthy of facing our King, you may be strong Syria, but you are not that strong. This is not a fight we can win through brute force. These humans have made this painstakingly clear to me.

If we want to win, Trussir lowered his gaze and then flew forward at a girl staring straight up like he just was.

Gohan felt the powerful energy moving below him, but Trussir was not coming up to help his comrade like Gohan thought he would. He had Syria on the ropes, and he punched forward into her crossed arms and knocked her ten yards back through the air. Gohan snapped his head down while she got thrown back, and Gohan's eyes widened in horror. Marron was staring straight up at him, and that look on Gohan's face told her something was wrong. Then she felt it. Marron's eyes lowered, but Trussir was on a straight path with her, his left fist pulled back and covered in a brighter blue aura than his dark blue skin.

Too fast! Marron thought, trying to lift her arms to block.

Too late! Trussir thought and punched his hand forward.

Too far! Gohan thought while he shot down like a rocket to save her.

Too slow! Syria thought, and she fired a red beam of light down into the back of the man so focused on saving Marron that he lost sight of what was behind him. A giant red explosion filled the sky and Gohan's voice echoed through the night as a scream. The sky that had been illuminated by that golden aura since he powered up darkened, a red tint covering everything instead from the blast that surrounded him. Inside the smoke and heat of that blast though, Gohan heard a loud squelch and his scream cut off, his eyes snapped back open, and his mind filled with a horrible image of the Admiral with his hand through Marron's small body.

Gohan dropped out the bottom of the explosion, a large hole on the back of his orange gi, a giant burn on his back, and he stared down at the powers he felt. As he looked towards where he heard the sound come from though, he sensed the powers there and opened his eyes wide. There were three powers, not two, and now he saw why.

Marron's body was covered in sweat. She heard the squelch and thought a fist had gone through her chest. Her eyes had shut and her arms lost feeling. After a second though, after Gohan's scream cut off, and the pain never came, Marron opened her eyes. She stared forward at the back of a white cloak that was getting more red by the second. The blue fist sticking out the middle of it was mostly red too, and Marron looked up from the center of this man's back to the back of his bald head. He was looking straight forward and down at the face of the monster in front of him, and he was grinning despite the burns all over him caused by the same man who had now punched a hole through his torso. This time, Tien thought, while blood spilled out of his mouth like a faucet. I will protect my comrades. He brought his arms in and grabbed the arm sticking through his chest.

"I don't know what you're planning," Trussir said, but he lifted up his left hand and pointed an open palm at Tien's face. The triclops' eyes grew wide at the bright blue light that shone on Trussir's hand. "But it's time to put you down, for good," Trussir finished.

Gohan reached down, but he spun as a power was already approaching his back much faster than he could accelerate to get to Trussir, and he had to cross his arms to block both of Syria's legs that had been coming down in a kick for the spot she just hit on his back. Marron was behind the man, but she saw the bright blue flash on Tien's other side as Trussir fired. Gohan felt the blast fire, and he shouted at the same time Marron did as blue light filled the air.

"TIEN!"

---

A/N That is the fastest 23,000 words I have ever written. It took me a day, but I finally finished the chapter. Tien! This time, we discover the source of the fourth power on the Dreadnaught! Major Gregor comes to the ship looking for a prisoner, and he has some choices to pick from. Will Dreeve be able to avenge his father? Can Anna and Strax defeat the powerful Hammer? Can Umara stop the Dread laser before it destroys Bulma, Videl, and all of West City? What about Gohan? Will he be able to stop Syria and Admiral Trussir? Can Android 18 and Trunks help, or will the IDE's armies be too much for them? Find out, next time! On Interplanetary Defense Empire!