Author's notes: Stupid Mother-Fucker Son of a Bitch! At last I am able to update this story! FUCK! As it is usual by now, things stretched way beyond my expectations, so much that I had to end this chapter in a cliffhanger because it was getting too long already and I still had a great deal more to write before I reached the right spot were I initially wanted to close this chapter. But Meh… Life and shit got in the way. But whatever, at least I am finally capable of updating this story which is the important thing.
Also some annoying guest reviewer was trying to talk shit in the reviews, so I simply deleted almost all of his messages. I don't give a fuck whether he had a point in some of his reviews or not, I normally am pretty tolerant about criticism and try my best to explain the reasons that led me to take certain courses of actions in my story, or my reasonings behind certain aspects, which usually leads me to some very interesting discussions with fellow users of this site. But the fact he was trying to flame me and being disrespectful kinda pissed me off. And since I'm of the belief of treating others as they treat you, I simply erased all of his reviews, and now he has no voice and is incapable of making his opinion known. After all, whatever an anonymous person has to say who cannot be bothered with loggin in with an actual user account as to avoid being contacted by me and read my replies matters almost nothing to me. So just to show to everybody who is in actual control of this story, he is brushed away as the insignificant nuisance that he is… Oh Hoh! Passive-Aggressive much…
Just to remind everyone that I don't mind criticism, as long as it is constructive. Being a dick and trying to flame me does nothing but making you a candidate to have your messages deleted. Anyway let's start this thing already.
BTW Bardock's voice is the one he has in the abridged series, I ignore if it is the same voice he has in the original English Dub of his movie. My birth language is Spanish so I haven't seen that version of the movie, but I really thought his voice in the abridged series to be quite badass, too bad it was wasted by having him speak random shit everytime he opens his mouth, but anyway… I'm using that as a mental reference for Bardock's voice.
Disclaimer: I own nothing; copyrights to the different series and/or franchises that appear in this fic belong to their respectives owners.
Wisdom of the Elders
!
A choking silence filled the room, no sound daring to escape from the throats of the people currently present and staring at the main monitor showing the image of a veteran condecorated warrior, the sheer presence he managed to effortlessly irradiate by bearing alone was more than enough to keep the mouths of everybody in attendance closed. Bardock ignored the looks of awe and astonishment with practiced ease; they were completely unimportant in his opinion and had no impact in his business with his descendant. He kept his attention solely focused in his granddaughter as he spoke. "So Pan, for what I've been hearing, you've been quite busy while you were away…" He said in a positively grave and raspy voice worthy of respect that told of an unmeasurable number of orders being shouted through countless battlefields. It was a voice that only a true veteran and experienced warrior would achieve.
Pan tried to play it cool in front of her great-grandfather, but secretely yearning for the approval of the elder Saiyan. "Well you know… Just trying to get by on my own… So, what do you think?" She asked with barely concealed eagerness.
"You could've done better, brat." It was the immediate blunt answer of Bardock, which smashed all of Pan's expectations into the ground and left her downcast and dissapointed. "But I guess it was expected for a pipsqueak like you to end up making lots of mistakes, considering your inexperience and hormonal growth…"
"Bardock, what the hell are you talking about…?" Bulma asked, staring dubiously at the elder Saiyan.
The dissaproval of the genius scientist simply bounced harmlessly from Bardock's profile, so well-versed he was in ignoring the complaints of those weaker than him. "Well, as you might already know princess…" He said with a clear lack of respect, taunting Bulma with the station she holds in Saiyan society for being married to the royal prince, a thing that sometimes tended to irk the turquoise-haired woman to no end. The title might have actually meant something to her if the Saiyans in general didn't acted like violent Barbarian invaders most of the time. "We Saiyans once upon a time used to send out newborns to conquer planets inhabited by relatively weak species…"
"Yes, another wonderful aspect of your society that I'm glad it fell out favor with the reformation…" It was the deadpan reply from Bulma, clearly making it know how much she loathed such practice.
"Your royal pain in the ass, could you please be quiet for a moment and let me explain my point… Yes, thank you…" Bardock sarcastically snarked back, though Bulma felt rather affronted at his behaviour, she decided to remain silent for the moment and allow him to speak. "Anyway, as I was saying, we Saiyans used to send our newborn away to take over worlds of weak species. Because we Saiyans have evolved and thrived in worlds with harsh enviroments and extreme climatic changes, our physiology and instincts have evolved to the point were a Saiyan baby is perfectly capable of taking care of himself, foraging and hunting for food after just a few hours from being born…"
"Yes, Pan has already explained that particular point to us during her initial conference to adress the people of our planet." Chun-Li said, showing an appropiate amount of respect, it wouldn't do to piss someone who is much more powerful than the alien girl that is already causing countless head-aches to many government officials around the world.
Bardock simply acknowledged that comment with a nod and kept speaking. "Right, but one particular aspect of Saiyan instincts that evolved over countless millenia, was the ability for infants to learn from the local wildlife and in order to adapt and start mimicking their surroundings so that they could be able to blend in and pass unnoticed by predators much bigger than them. This ability is usually limited when the Saiyan baby is around his parents, learning how to act and fight by watching and imitating his elders, but when his natural instincts truly shine is when the baby is left to fend on his own. This is the reason why we sent our newborn to take over peaceful planets. The Saiyan babies would blend with their surroundings and learn all they could about the inhabitants of the worlds they were in, their behaviors, their strengths, their weaknesses, and every single thing that could prove useful while they grew older and became stronger in secret, and once they were old enough for the mental commands ingrained in their subconcious through scanners at the moment of birth to activate… Well suffice to say that the planet in question was utterly doomed." He explained in a very plain and blunt way that did nothing but increase the appealed horror of his audience at what they were hearing.
"You people used to brainwash your babies into exterminating the species of entire planets!?" Miu exclaimed in a mixture of horror and disgust.
Bardock just shrugged unconcernedly at that reaction. "It's not exactly brainwashing… Brainwashing tends to limit the capacities of the subjects for creativity, quick-thinking and autonomous actions; and we needed warriors, soldiers for our empire who could overcome the greatests of challenges and survive againts the most extreme of conditions, not drones who would be little more than meat-shields. No, its more like indoctrination, all the knowledge needed for a common citizen of our empire was ingrained inside our babies' brains shortly after their birth: the life-style of our society, our culture and traditions, the basis of our technology and its operation, basic fighting styles and introduction to energy manipulation. In essence, our babies received the equivalent of an elementary-middle school level of education by your human standards into their heads in a single instance just a few hours after birth, plus the specifics of what their mission would be on the planets they were sent. You might consider this practice to be Barbaric, and I do admit it's not the most efficient of methods to train elite soldiers, but we had to make due with what we had. The universe is a cold unforgiving place and you have to do whatever it is necessary to survive. In this case, taking over other race's planets was the only way we had to make a living, raiding other planets for their natural resources… It is not something many would call a pleasant state of affairs, but the other option would have meant the total extinction of our race. And when you have to choose between the survival of your own species or that of another, well, I'm pretty sure the answer is quite obvious…" He explained in a rather casual and blasé tone, as if the notion of the complete anhilation of entire species wasn't remarkable enough to faze him. It simply caused his audience to look at him with increase discomfort.
Ignoring (or more likely uncaring) the disquiet of the gathered martial artists, Bardock continued on. "In any case, that has no relevance to what I'm trying to explain, the lifestyle of the Saiyan Empire back during the days of the Planet Trade can be a subject for later discussion. No, what I'm trying to say is that these instincts took hold of Pan once she found herself stranded on her own on a foreign Planet. Without an adult figure worthy of respect from whom to mold her own behaviour, she had to turn to her new surroundings for guidance."
"And since the first place she had contact with was that Todo School where the students were allowed to fight each other for supremacy under the rule of the strongest and things like murder and rape were a common thing with no one batting an eyelash…" Chun-Li said, giving an idea just how screwed up the whole situation was from the very beginning.
Bardock simply nodded indifferently at what the Chinese woman was hinting at, his face completely unexpressive. "Yes, my wayward great-grandaughter's first contact with your world was bound to end badly no matter what…"
"Does instinct alone is enough reason to explain why Pan's acts the way she does? I find it to be a rather convenient excuse to keep her from claiming responsibility for her misdeeds…" Karin stated with boundless and palpable skepticism. Pan narrowed her eyes at the blonde girl and began to give her a rather hostile stare.
The Saiyan Elder simply limited himself to answer that inquiry, uncaring of the ill-will that such comment might have caused on his youngest descendant. "You humans are in no position to be making that kind of comments. I've met your kind several times out there in other worlds, and you're just as violent, if not more so than my own kind. And what's even worse, you try to hide your own savagerie and barbarism through a fake veener of civility. We Saiyans might have eradicated many other species by our own hand, but that was just the natural outcome from our every day struggle for survival, the expected result of two opposite forces clashing for dominance. Your kind on the other hand, anihilates other species just because it is inconvinient for you to adapt your lifestyle to the realities of your enviroment, no instead you outright change your surroundings to suit your own needs and destroy the balance of the natural world in the process, alongside any other creature that might depend of such balance for its continuous survival. We Saiyans might be remorseless killers, but even we are not so callous as to attempt to modify the enviroment around us and instead do our beast to adapt and integrate seamlessly the best we can in the ecology of whatever world we found ourselves in. That was actually one of your major concerns when we were part of the planet trade, to erase the indigenous populous of a world while at the same time preserving all of its natural resources and enviroment. We kill sentient species but preserve their planets and ecology, you humans destroy not only other sentient species, but also the planet you're living in, all the fauna and the flora, and to top it all off, yourselves in the process. I need not to have ever visited your backwater world to know that just because you humans are the only sentient species living in there that its probably a cesspool choke-full of contaminants due to the rampant pollution of the oceans and sky, that is quickly turning into a wasteland due to your continual ravenous consumption of resources and the constant wars that most surely you dumbasses must be waging between your different races and religions…" Bardock commented in an extremely deadpan tone, showing how much unimpressed he was. Karin immediately clammed up, not knowing how to respond to that as she was fully aware that what the elder Saiyan was saying was true, planet Earth did indeed had a whole heap of troubles to deal with, most of them brought about as result of human inteference.
Bardock kept speaking, uncaring of her discomfort."Unlike you, we Saiyans have accepted our true nature and embrace it wholeheartedly instead of trying to lie to ourselves by hiding it through flimsy notions of morality or ethics. So we always have let ourselves be primarily led by our instincts. We are a very aggressive race that is predisposed towards violence and that's always in close touch with our more wild and savage side, again, an evolutionary trait that had to be developed in order for our race to thrive in the most hostile and inhospitable of enviroments. Though we are somewhat able to supress our most violent tendencies when around weaker races, but that is mostly because of the mentality we develop for never having faced another race that could match us in terms of power, it make us look down over those who are weaker than us and not want to have anything to do with them. Plus the sacred teachings of the Legendary Super Saiyan, who is the closest thing to a god that we Saiyans have in our culture, tell us that we shouldn't involve ourselves in the concerns of the weaklings below us and let them be since killing weaklings doesn't help us any in making ourselves stronger, and following the path of strength and continuously improve one self and seek greater challenges is what a true Saiyan should dedicate his life for…" The Elder Saiyan stated leaving many of the martial artists present to ponder on his word.
Still there were some who doubted his statements. "If that were true then how come your race exterminated and conquered the homeworlds of peaceful species…!?" Chouhi Ekitoku said with obvious suspicion and distrust, she still found the notion of a race of supermen that killed the entire populations of other planets to sell them to the highest bidder to be quite unsettling.
Bardock wasn't in the slightest bit fazed by that accusation and just gave an 'Are you stupid?' look at the tomboy Toushi. "Hence why we only sent our newborn to conquer those kinds of worlds since we adults considered it to be beneath us, and a waste of time, to deal personally with those planets; the only ones who could find it challenging to conquer the worlds of weaker races would be our infants… In fact, it was considered to be a grave humilliating insult for an adult to receive a mission in which he had to take over the world of a weak race since you were practically announcing to everybody how that Saiyan was a puny weakling who was only fit to fight against little children. An in a warrior culture were the only thing that matters is strength to determine your social standing… Well… I suppose I don't need to tell you all how such a thing would be less than desireable…" He stated, making many to actually acknowledge his point of view.
"Okay, I could see how that would be insulting; I would really pretty irate if someone were going around telling everybody how I was only worthy of figthing against little children. My pride as a martial artist would simply not tolerate such thing." Ken Masters commented, actually able to understand such a situation.
Bardock continued speaking. "So yeah, there's a lot of pride and arrogance that has taken hold of our race, but considering our strength…" He simply shrugged unconcernedly to show how such outcome was simply unavoidable. "Which ironically enough is what mostly keep weaker races safe from our wrath, though there are things that can make us slip in our control of our instincts; the Super Saiyan states for example… Each consecutive transformation not only increases our power, but it also makes us much more aggressive, the more powerful we become, the harder it is for us to rein in our violent impulses…" That revelation seemed to catch everybody off guard.
"You mean to tell us that you become more aggressive and violent everytime you turn blonde!?" Whip exclaimed in surprise, turning towards the alien girl with an alarmed face.
Pan couldn't help but roll her eyes at that accusation. "I've been able to turn into a Super Saiyan since I was a toddler, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I managed to master the transformation many years ago, doing so allows me to maintain total control over my impulses without resulting in me becoming aggressive. I can safely turn into my Super Saiyan 1 and 2 transformations without any issues but the third one does gives me some trouble in maintaining control since I've yet to master it, but this is understandable since is the most recent transformation I've managed to unlock and I haven't had much time to practice with it…" She stated with a slight hint of disdain as she crossed her arms. Ryu particularly found that piece of info intriguing, since he for a long time has been struggling to control his inner darkness brought forth by the Satsui no Hado.
Bardock simply nodded at that statement. "Indeed, though this was just an example, what really could pose and issue for Pan's behavior is that she never had to experiment her Saiyan instincts before on her own." He plainly explained without pause.
"What do you mean by that?" Gentoku Ryuubi asked, blinking in perplexity.
"Unlike most of our race, Pan has had a rather privileged and cloistered upbringing. For example, I never even knew who my parent's were (not that I care at this point after being alive for more than a century) So I've always had to rely on my own in order to survive, the only thing that I could fully trust being my own instincts, and after pulling through almost impossible odds and getting out alive from dangerous situations that should have outright killed me... Well… Let's just say than other than my mate, there's no one who knows me, and what I am capable of, better than myself… My first born son, Raditz, like the rest of the children who were born during our planet conquering days, was sent to another planet to eradicate its population and bringing it to the fold as a new-born. And from then on he continued receiving mission after mission, conquering planet after planet with other Saiyans and their strike teams. So me and Gine, that's my mate's name by the way, rarely saw him or speak to him. My second-born, Kakarot, Pan's grandfather, was too sent to conquer another planet as a newborn…" Before he could continue speaking he was interrupted by a question from Aya Natsume.
"Why does Pan's grandfather have two names? I thought he was just named Goku…?" She said as she scratched the top of her head in puzzlement.
"Because one is his Saiyan name that his mother gave him the moment he was born, and the other is the name that that the old man who found him in the world he was supposed to destroy gave him when he adopted him…" It was Bardock's succint and direct answer. "Anyway, Kakarot then fell of a waterfall and hit his head, making him forget all about the indoctrination he had received, his mission and his heritage as a Saiyan." He said in the most blasé tone ever, as if he were speaking about some unimportant fact.
"What a lovely baby-sitting technique, just grab the child and throw him head-first from a waterfall… But seriously though, how the hell does something like that happens!? What kind of negligent old man did your son end up with!?" Whip exclaimed with a very thrown expression, her posture and bearing clearly telling she wasn't pleased with what she had just heard.
"I'm actually not surprised something like that happened." It was Bardock's uncaring response. "We Saiyans are a rowdy lot; even our babies can be more than a handful for most other species. In any case, my son then spent some years living with the old man in the mountains, then the old man died and Kakarot was left to live on his own in the wild until the princess here stumbled upon him during her initial quest for the dragonballs." He said, iddly pointing at Bulma's direction with a calloused finger.
The turquoise-haired scientist just scowled at the Elder Saiyan for that comment. "Yes, I remember how Goku was so isolated in the mountains as I child when I first meet him. He was completely ignorant about the world outside his mountain valley; he didn't even know the difference between boys and girls, never having seeing someone of the opposite sex until I arrived in his mountain looking for his Dragon Ball, and even then he thought I was a boy during our first meeting." Bulma harrumped, a little miffed at remembering how ignorant Goku was during childhood, even more so than what he is today.
Juri just gave an unimpressed scoff at that. "Well, I wonder how much of a tomboy you were as kid to confuse other people about your sex." She derisively said, trying to get a rise out of the turquoise-haired woman.
She suceeded, for Bulma became clearly incensed at that comment, but before she could speak Bob Makihara beat her to the point. "Yeah, not to be insulting or anything lady, but it does so happen sometimes that some girls do tend to be completely undistinguishable from boys. After all, we all believed that Pan was a boy when she first arrived at Todo…" He stated in a rather non-chalant way, both arms resting on the back of his head full of dreadlocks.
Pan just turned towards the dark-skinned boy with a deadpan. "Gee… Thanks for the reinforcement for my self-esteem. Why don't you twist the knife a little bit more while you're so blatanly stabbing me in the back…!?" She sarcastically said in an acid tone as she stared at Bob, making some of the people to chuckle at her reaction while Bob was ble to do nothing more but sweat-drop and mumble some half-assed apologies.
Bulma simply rolled her eyes, clearly not impressed by their antics. "For your information, I'm always been nothing but quite the proprer lady since I was a little girl." She stated in a better-than-thou attitude, even raising her nose up as a noble would do towards the peasantry while she typed something off-screen, the top or her knuckles rising and falling at the edge of the monitor beeing the only thing that could be seen. "Don't believe me…? Then take a look at this old photo that was taken during our first adventure for the Dragon Ball." The genius scientist stated, opening a window in the screen where a picture was shown of a bunch of people posing for a camera, pretty obvious by the V signs some of the people in the photo were making. The gathered martial artists could see an old white-bearded bald man wearing sunglasses and one of those training turtle-shells like the ones that Pan had made them to wear themselves on his back, a positively giant of a man wielding a giant ax, wearing armor, a bright red cape and a horned helmet that completely covered his eyes. Next was a disheveled long-haired young man that looked like a bandit, a honest-to-god pig standing in two legs and wearing a chinese-army outfit, a short weird blue cat-thing that was floating in the air, a kid with the same strange hairdo as Pan's grandfather that from the fact that it had a tail must have been a Saiyan, a young girl dressed in a two-piece revealing bikini wearing a cape and a pink helmet with a blade sticking out of it. And last but not least, what was without a doubt a young Bulma, looking decidedly female and impossible to mistake for a boy, especially if one were to consider the black bunny outfit she was wearing, ears included. The gathered martial artists just stared.
"What's up with the bunny outfit…!?" Ken Masters inquired, not complaining at seeing a pretty girl in a bunny suit but still founding it strange nonetheless.
Bulma growled under her breath, clearly not pleased about having to remember that particular episode of her life. "That's what happens when the people you have to rely on turn out to be perverts and you have to reach a compromise with them in order to achieve your goals. I don't particularly like remembering some of the most embarassing things I had to do during our first quest for the Dragon Balls, but I figured this should be more than enough evidence to show you how practically impossible was to mistake me for a boy during my youth…"
"I'll say, lady…" Ranma said, agreeing with the genius scientist statement. Looking at the picture in the screen with a contemplative face, one arm crossed in front of him while he rubbed his chin with the other in thought. "Even I have to admit that I cannot think of you as anything else than female, and I once mistook my best friend since childhood, U-chan, for a boy when she was actually a woman. It wasn't until last year when I was reunited with U-chan after not having seen her for years that I discovered this fact…" He confessed, leaving many staring at him in perplexity at that revelation, except Akane who was just nodding along with Ranma's statement. Boy, hadn't that been a funny situation when Ukyo first arrived in town.
Mature just stared at Ranma with a particular stumped expression. "Just how dense can you be to mistake your best childhood friend for a boy…? Shouldn't you have realized what her true gender was after spending a lot of time with her, if what you're saying about her being your best friend is true…?" She deadpanned with a suspicious stare.
It was Akane who answered that question, stepping forward to defend her fiancee. "Well to be fair, it is very easy to confuse Ukyo for a boy since she is quite the Tomboy who likes to dress in male's clothes and wraps her chest to hide her gender. When she first arrived in Furinkan, the school that Ranma and I go to, everybody thought she was male because she was wearing the boy's uniform…"
"Ah…! Just like happened with Pan when she first arrived in Todo wearing the boy's uniform and everybody thought she was a boy…" Souichiro Nagi declared with an expression of realization.
Pan was mildly offended by that comment and turned to the blonde boy to give him a piece of her mind. "The only reason why I decided to wear the boy's uniform was because of how indecent and tacky the girl's one was, what with those stupidly short miniskirts (more like microskirts) that would leave me flashing my panties to everybody at the first breeze. I don't mind wearing girl's clothes, but they have to be tasteful, I am not a skank after all…" She declared in a rather uppity demeanor.
"Hey!" It was Aya Natsume's hurt response, since she didn't mind to wear such kind of clothes. She was comforted somewhat by her sister, who put a hand on her shoulder and said to her.
"You have to admit Pan's right on this point. The uniforms were kind off risque' that is one of the reasons I wore clothes like that, to distract my opponents using my body and create openings in ther defenses to leave them vulnerable." Maya said in a lecturing tone, Aya could do nothing more but acquiesce with a pout, fuming internally in frustration.
Akane decided to ignore all of the banter floating around and get back to her point. "Anyway, but yeah… Ukyo is quite the tomboy and is fairly easy to mistake her for a male, unless you've been previously informed of her real gender, it is not certain that you would be able to see through her disguise at first glance…" The youngest Tendo stated, finalizing with her statement.
Ranma then decided to give his own two cents about the matter, something that was a bad decision in hindsight. "Yes, you should heed Akane's words on the subject; she really does know all there is to known about tomboys, seeing how she is the greatest of them all herself… Urrrck!" The pigtailed boy began to say as he passed an arm around Akane's shoulder and leaned on her amicably, only to be abruptly stopped mid-sentence by an elbow to the abdomen courtesy of the youngest Tendo that doubled him over and sent him to his kness.
"Jerk…" It was all that Akane said as she looked down at the irritable pigtailed boy.
"Uncute Tomboy!" It was Ranma's creative response. The gathered martial artists just stared flatly at the antics of the two.
"Seriously Ranma, your girlfriend is just trying to help you and you start calling her names. That's not cool yo'. You shouldn't act all surprised when she decides to strike you back for your goading, if you can't stand the heath, then don't fan the flames in the first place, man…" Bob Makihara said in his distinctive foreing American accent.
"She's not my girlfriend!/He's not my boyfriend!" It was the immediate coordinated response from the engaged couple who proceeded to turn and stare at each other in surprise at noticing how both had said the same thing at the same time before turning away and show their backs at each other while crossing their arms and huffing in indignation. The motions being in such perfect synchrony with each other that it was both a bizarre and cute sight at the same time.
"I must admit, you both had me fooled for a moment…" Urd deadpanned with the most flat expression possible, the sexual tension being so thick that she could cut it with a knife. If those two didn't have a thing for each other then she was the Virgin Mary.
"Okay, ignoring the lovers' quarrel…" Whip began to say, trying to steer the conversation back in subject and causing the two loverbirds to start spewing out half-baked excuses and denials on how much they were not an item (which she decidedly pretended she didn't hear) before she turned back towards the two relatives of the alien girl on the screen. "I can't believe Pan's grandfather was too dense and ignorant as to believe you were a man!" She exclaimed at Bulma while gesturing at the picture on the screen where she appeared wearing a bunny-suit.
The genius scientist just nooded along in acknowledgement. "Yeah… He was completely oblivious about the differences between genders. I remember he used to touch every people he met as a kid in the crotch to determine whether they were boys or girls…" She couldn't help but face-palm at the memory. "Ugh… That was so embarassing…"
Juri was kind of intrigued by that information… "Ooooh… So forward of him; I'm not so sure about everybody else, but even though I like a little boldness I still expect to be taken out for dinner first before I let someone touch me in my parts. That can come later if they manage to impress me first…" She said with impish saucy smile.
Momoyo Kawakami seemed in total agreement with that opinion, as she gave a pervy smile of her own. "I know what you mean… Most people want to just jump straight into the action, but the foreplay is also an important part to take in consideration." She said, nodding in a knowledgeable way as she gave an air of faux-wisdom.
Morrigan smiled wickedly at that. "That's exactly what I've been tried to explain to everybody, but they just seem unwilling to learn. Too uptight by all of their boring social norms and ethics, I can see for miles that it does nothing for them but leave them quite frustated and grumpy…"
Bulma just rolled her eyes at the lewd comments of the three perverted women, clearly not impressed by them. She has after all known Master Roshi for decades by now. "Well I can assure you all that Goku is not someone to dissapoint, he is very impressive by any standard."
Morrigan just kept smiling as she shamelessly oggled the image of Bardock in the screen. "If he is as much of a good-looking hunk just as his father, then I can clearly believe that…" It was her shameless response.
Bardock wasn't in the least fazed by that comment, as he simply huffed in slight irritation. "Women… You lot are always in heath…" He said in the dullest tone of voice ever.
"That was sexist!" Akane exclaimed in outrage, very offended by Bardock's comment. She wasn't the only one, as many of the other female martial artists also felt quite offended by the elder's Saiyan cavalier machismo.
"Is it…?" Bardock replied, unimpressed by the tide of female outrage. "Or is it just that you're unable to stand the truth. In all my years and in all of my travels, on every planet that I visit that I don't have to conquer, there always has to be some woman trying to put her hands on me and wanting to breed with me. It is annoying, and a nuisance since I always end up being delayed and distracted from my bussiness… And the worst thing is that I cannot simply kill them to make sure they leave me alone, since it usually always happens in places were going into a rampage would be detrimental for Saiyan interests because killing the daughter of some prominent noble or ally would be quite troublesome in the long run." He sneered, disdainful at the notion of beings that he considered inferior daring to try and engage in such activities with him. It did nothing but leave the previously outraged women rather perplexed.
"Okay… I don't know if I should feel insulted or confused…" Miu began to say. "You say that women are nothing but horny creatures that want nothing more but have sex with you, yet you clearly look down in disgust at the idea."
"Saiyans do not have the same notion about sex like other races…" Bardock began to say in a rather condescending tone. "The only time when Saiyans actually put any importance towards reproduction is during…"
"During the mating period every time during a new moon…" Mature said, interrupting the old warrior. "Yes, Pan has already explained that to us…"
"Very well, then I don't need to explain why I don't have the same fixation over sex like your species. I have no interest in breeding with weak females who have never had to fight for their survival for even a single day of their lives and instead waste their time trying to satiate a stupid lower urge." Bardock all but growled, getting irate at the memory of all those times that other women tried to propose to him in the most ridiculous ways and at the most inappropriate of times.
"To be fair… I think I can understand what all those other women must have felt when they looked at you and tried to mate with you…" Kushinada, of all people, said;which obviously earned her a lot of strange looks.
"Kushinada… Just what the blazes are you talking about…?" Pan inquired, staring suspiciously at the century-old grandmaster. She was having some deep reservations after all about the reason as to why the eternally young beauty was making such comments, and she didn't like it one bit.
Kushinada must have been able to tell what the alien girl was thinking by looking at her expression, as she locked eyes with Pan with a face that clearly told 'Really…?' "Please mistress, don't give me that look, it is actually quite easy to figure out the reason as to why your great-grandfather is pestered by women wherever he goes… Just think for a moment mistress, what is mating but the act of reproduction. In the simplest of terms, all species at some degree or another, feel the need of passing his genes to the next generation. Like your own race, it is not unusual for males to compete against each other for the attention of a female, even we humans do this at some measure, a leftover of our most primal and basic instincs from the times we lived in caves and roamed the wilderness, hunting for food and refuge against the elements. So in order to have a strong progeny that will be able to survive the harsh realities of a savage and unforgiving world, the female had to make sure to choose the right partner to achieve this goal. And of course, the potential mate had to prove that he was strong enough in his own right in order to convince the female that mating with him would produce the desired able-fit offspring; which takes us back to your great-grandfather…" The century-old grandmaster said, gesturing to Bardock's image in the monitor. "The moment I laid my eyes on him, I immediately could tell that he was a powerful and mighty warrior, possibly the strongest that I had ever met in my long life, and believe me, the fact that I am acknowledging his strength and complimenting his skills as a warrior is something that I'm rarely willing to give. And in order for you to have an idea of how much of a monumental achievement is for me to do this, let me confess to you that in all my long years I have never laid with another man, not because I am incapable of showing interest in the male gender, but because all of my so called suitors were unable to catch my interest. None of them were able to meet my strict standards and prove themselves to have the strength to match my own and extensive combat prowess to deing myself to even glance in their direction. The only other man that I admit was able to catch my interest was Hayato, but he always showed little interest to my advances…" Kushinada declared, which caused most of the students and even fellow grandmasters to turn and stare at the elder martial artist, Hayato Furinji simply tried to ignore all the attention suddenly focused on him by acting the fool and staring towards the ceiling, refusing to meet any of the stares being pointed his way.
Kushinada kept speaking, paying no heed to the antics of his former beau. "So taking this in consideration, it is not so unreasonable to think that other women, whether conciously or not, might also take notice and acknowledge the strength of your great-grandfather. In the most primitive and primal parts of their beings, they must agree that he is a powerful male alpha and thus a prime candidate to produce strong offspring with…" The stoic woman finished with her usual neutral expression.
Bardock seemed to seriously consider that explanation as he assumed a thinking pose and began to rub his chin with a hand. "You know that actually explains a lot… Huh? Who would have thought that the reason that all those women didn't stop pestering me was because they acknowledged my strength?" He then shook his head as to rid himself of such inane thoughts. "It doesn't matter anyways… As I have said already, I have little interest in breeding with soft women that have never had to lift a single finger to get things done in their lives, besides; I already have a mate… And no other woman can compare to her…" Bardock stated in a no-nonsense tone that leaved no room for argument.
"So you're a married man…!?" Ganko Kawakami asked, finding the notion of the old and hard-edged alien warrior to be in love with a single woman and remain loyal to her to be quite romantic.
But of course, Bardock's answer was not something a common person would expect and he just gave an odd look towards the thin girl, his face showing nothing but blank incomprehension. "Marriage…? Again with your human customs… We Saiyans do not have a concept for marriage like your own species has… We have partners whom we mate with in order to produce strong offspring, a particular strong Saiyan warrior can have multiple partners if he so wishes and they can remain together for some time if they don't dislike each other that much. However, it is a rare thing for Saiyans to be involved in a romantic relationship, not even when having children of their own. The parents usually just simply meet from time to time in order to train and instruct their offspring in the warrior's way of our race. But make no mistake; neither the male nor the female Saiyans have any obligation of remaining with their partner after the breeding act, things like affection or love have nothing to do in our mating practices, it's just reproduction and that's it. The father doesn't need to make himself responsible for the child, heck! Not even the mother needs to make herself responsible for the brat." He stated in his usual blunt unconcerned manner.
"What do you mean by that…?" Foxy dared herself to ask, if only to confirm her suspicious, but inwardly dreading the answer as she glanced concernedly from the corner of her eyes towards her partner Diana, who she knew found little children and babies to be endearing.
"Usually, Saiyan parents only pay the minimum of attention to their gestating child, if only to keep track of the pregnancy's progress and development. Once the baby is born, he is tested to determine his level of power. If the results are favorable then both parents may decide to take care of him and have a hand in his development to make sure he grows into a powerful warriror. Sometimes the father might not be pleased with the results and can cut all ties with his offspring and mate without any repercusion, while the mother might still find the results somewhat acceptable and nevertheless decide to take care of the brat on her own. However, if a Saiyan child proves to fail all expectations and is born with a power that is sub-par from what should have been considering his parentage, then the mother can refuse as well to take care of the baby and abandon him to let him fend for himself on his own… Not that a Saiyan baby needs the attention of his parents to take care of his needs. As I already said, the instincts of the babies have developed in a way as to let them survive and fend for themselves on their own after only a few hours of their birth. There's no need for any kind of involvement from the parents for a Saiyan child to grow by himself. After all, that is what happened to me…" Bardock declared with an unconcerned shrug, completely ignorant of the effects that his revelation might have on his audience, who simply stared back gobsmacked at him after what he had just said.
Even Bulma had been caught flat-footed by that revelation, as she turned towards the elder Saiyan with an expression of utter shock. "Bardock…!? I… I don't know what to say… I never knew… I'm so sorry…" She declared with great sympathy for the old warrior.
Bardock simply stared at the turquoised-haired woman with an odd perplexed look, as if he had no idea of what she was talking about. "You're sorry…? What for, princess…? You haven't done anything to irritate me as of late, well, no more than usual…" It was his simple carefree answer.
"No, it's not that!" Bulma exclaimed in reply, a small vein throbbing briefly on her forehead at the cheekiness of the elder Saiyan. "I'm talking about the fact that you were abandoned by your own parents as a baby and left to die… No wonder you have such a harsh outlook about the world, you must have suffered through so much during your childhood…" She said staring at the Elder Saiyan with boundless pity.
Bardock just gave her a strange look. "Suffering…? Are you kidding me…? Wait, you're being serious? You truly believe that I hold any kind of resentment over the fact that I was abandoned by my parents…!?" He said with an incredulous expression. "Don't make me laugh! Why should I waste time moping over something I never had, nor cared in the first place? Even as an infant I wasn't so helpless as to need others to look after me, to even suggest such is insulting. I never really needed any kind of parental oversight or attention to take care of my own needs; I was fully capable of taking care of them myself. My progenitors never had any kind of relevance in my life, so why should a spare a thought for them?"
"But are you the little bit curious about who your parents were? To meet those who gave birth to you and finally know were you come from…!?" Sakura asked with no small amount of disbelief, she couldn't believe that a person could be so blasé about his own origins.
"I know exactly who am I and from where I come from." It was Bardock immediate and unwavering answer. "I am Bardock, a proud Saiyan warrior of the highest caliber from the planet Vegeta, who had to fight at each step of the way to be where I am today. No one gave me anything, no one handled me anything, everything I've gained I had to go and get it myself with my own two hands…" He said, raising a hand and closing it into a fist for emphasis.
Despite such hard and confident statement, there were still those who coulnd't simply accept the words of the elder Saiyan. Like Belldandy, who stared at Bardock with a mournful lookas her gaze became a mirror of the boundless compassion and sympathy that she began to feel towards the veteran warrior. "So sad… Such a cruel and hard fate is that of the Saiyans. To grow up without never having know the love of a parent, unable to trust or rely on others but yourself, to never show the slightest amount of affection or have any kind of lasting bond with another and instead expected to live a life of cruelty and opression towards those who are weaker than you, to never experience love and be loved in return… I… I weep for you… Yours must be such a sad and lonely existence…"
The Elder Saiyan just limited himself to stare at the kind goddess, his expression betraying nothing about his inner thoughts. "You shouldn't waste your tears on someone like me girl…" He said with a stoic countenance. "You seem to be making the mistake of thinking that because I've led a harsh life I am deserving of being shown sympathy… Let me disabuse you of that notion little girl…" Bardock stated with a shake of his head, before focusing his gaze solely upon the brunette goddess, allowing the entire magnitude of his terrible presence to fall upon the hapless Belldandy. The power of his merciless stare being so great that all the people in the room couldn't avoid taking a step back in shock despite not being the center of his attention. Despite the fact of being many millions of light years away in another Galaxy or that he was speaking through a communication array, it did nothing to lessen the impact caused by the Elder Saiyan's unnerving stare. To Belldandy's credit, she managed to stand her ground despite being obviously shaken by Bardock's gaze, gaining a modicum of respect from the Elder Saiyan. Although it did nothing to change his mind from the improptu lesson he was about to give in order to instruct her about his true nature.
"I am a killer, a merciless, remorseless mass murderer. I have personally cleansed entire worlds of their native populations, entire species rendered extinct by my own hand. Men, women and children; whole cities filled to the brim with unsuspecting civilians, all gone in an instant, as easily as one would blow out a candle. For decades this was my duty as a Saiyan warrior, to murder in cold blood, to be willing to kill without hesitation or mercy. Billions of lives have been extinguished by my actions alone and trillions more that have been left disposesed after I expelled them from their own planets and homes… And you know what the best part of all this is…" Bardock said as he let the entire brunt of his terrifying cold gaze smash over the defenseless goddess. "The best part is that after staining my hands with so much blood as to drown entire solar systems several times over, I don't feel even the slightest bit of regret over all the lives I've taken…" He stated without any feeling, leaving Belldandy unable to do anything but shake in fright as she stared up at the unforgiving Saiyan warrior as a horrible realization began to take hold on her mind over what kind of terrible creature was standing in front of her. Through the entire tirade Bulma simply limited herself to frown and make a face, but ultimately remained silent and allowed the Elder Saiyan to tell his piece, knowing that just like his husband, there was more to Bardock than just his horrible past.
However, it didn't change the fact that most of the martial artists and students in the room were left scared shitless of the Veteran Saiyan warrior. Akane reared back in fright and stared at the image of Bardock with actual fear on her semblance. "You… You're a monster!"
That seemed to be enough to put a stop to Bardock's flare of his terrible presence, the oppressive atmosphere that was suddenly being felt throughout the room simply dissapeared as if had never been there in the first place, allowing everybody to breathe easily once more. "I know…" It was the only reply of the Elder Saiyan as he suppresed his power back into nothing before adressing Belldandy again, his expression losing all of his hard edges as he became once more the image itself of stoicism. "That is why it is a waste for you to shed tears for me. I am undeserving of the sympathy of others, if you try to feel sorry for me in the naïve belief that I can turn a new leaf and make up for all the horrible things I've done, then you'll find nothing but dissapointment, for I regret nothing of what I have done. And even if I no longer dedicate myself to the conquest of other planets, that doesn't mean I'm looking for something as dubious or flickering as redemption for my sins. It is not something that I want or wish for…" Bardock declaredclearly before growing silent, his gaze turning distant for just a second, as if his mind was suddenly lost in distant thoughts, an almost imperceptible change that you could never hope to detect unless you were paying really close attention. Something that Belldandy was doing…
"You… you really feel not the least amount of remorse for all the lives you've taken…?" Sakura asked rather unnerved at the thought of someone so merciless could exist.
Bardock simply shrugged uncaringly at that question. "It is hard to feel any kind of sympathy towards someone that is trying to kill you, even though I've eradicated hundreds of species by myself, none of them laid down their lives without a fight. Something that is obviously expected since no one worthy of respect would simply allow an invading force to do what they want and take over their territories. But we Saiyans needed resources for our own survival, that was the main reason why we entered the planet trade in the first place, and since our opponents weren't simply going to handle them to us just like that, a confrontation was inevitable. The races of the planets I invaded tried their best to kill me and my comrades, and we in turn didn't hesitate to end them… I can understand and even respect their willingness to defend their own worlds, to not just simply hand what belongs to you to someone else without exacting a heavy price. But in a battle of two opposing forces, one side has to lose. And that's what happened, they lost, I won. If the situation had turned out differently then they would have been alive and I would have been dead, simple as that." The Saiyan Elder said as he lost himself in memories for a moment, recalling all the great battles he once fought on behalf of the Empire, looking back at his past exploits with great fondness. Despite schooling his features to keep from showing any expresion, Bardock couldn't completely keep his inner feelings from showing in his semblance, something that was quickly noticed by those who were observing him even though they missinterpreted the meaning of his expression.
"You enjoyed killing innocent people!?" Skuld exclaimed after seeing the pleased look that briefly passed through Bardock's face.
The elder Saiyan just limited himself to stare in the direction of the chibi-goddess with an expression that clearly said how much of a foolish child he thought her to be. "What the hell are you talking about…?" He asked with a devil-may-care attitude.
"You are making a weird face back there, almost as if smiling,like it pleased you to have killed all those people…" Whip said with no small amount of unease, after all she was adressing an alien superbeing that has exterminated entire worlds all by himself, Earth stands no fucking chance against him if they piss him off.
Unaware of the panic thoughts of the revolver wielder, Bardock simply waved off the question as if it had no importance to him. "Oh, that… I didn't realize my inner thoughts were showing for a moment, not that I particularly care mind you… No, I was just simply remembering all the battles I fought during my time in the Planet Trade… And before any of you ask… No, I wasn't smiling because I enjoyed the killing; feelings had nothing to do in the equation. It's true that I don't particularly care about most of the people I've killed, nor do I feel even an ounce of regret for having ended their lives. But I neither particularly hated them nor took pleasure over their deaths. How could I…? They were beings that I had never met until the day I invaded their worlds, I had no personal stake over the fact they either lived or died… But… The battles I fought against them… Their last stands against us were they gave everything they had to expell us from their planets… It is something I will nevere be able to forget…" The veteran warrior exclaimed, growing a bit excited and restless, yet trying his best to keep his feelings under control.
"What do you mean by that…?" Foxy asked with a bit of intrigue, yet still a lot wary at the alien conqueror.
Bardock grew silent after that question, as if considering if he should deing himself to answer it or not. "I'm not sure if any of you would be able to understand if I were to explain myself… I am unsure about the worth of any of you as warriors… But I suddenly began to feel a bit melancholic, so why not…" He stated, before he proceeded to speak about his days as a planet conqueror. "Back when our race just began to work in the planet trade organization, I decided to forgo most of the missions that were made availabe to us Saiyans, and instead I only took the most dangerous ones with the highest possibilities of failure. Effectively, only what could be considered suicidal missions were the only assignments capable of catching my fancy. Worlds that had been under siege for many months and even years on end, repelling every single one of the assaultsmade by the World Trade Organization, planets that even the most veteran and experienced of warriors were wary of tackling on their own without heavy support, were even other first-class Saiyan warriors had lost their lives in the attempt of conquering them… For a third-class like me, these missions were the challenge I had ever wanted as a warrior, and they didn't dissapoint… Many times I found myself at the brink of death, forced to push beyond any of my limits in order to survive against enemies that were trying their damn best to end me while all of my companions and fellow Saiyans fell all around me, and in the endwhen the fires of combat died down and the smoke cleared, only to find myself being the only one left standing in a shattered battlefield among the corpses of both my enemies and allies… Well, let's just say there's no other feeling than the euphoria one feels at knowing you're still alive, the sense of accomplishment makes you feel invincible… In reality, I am very grateful at my enemies for having allowed me to experience all those sensations, you could say that it is thanks to them that I am the man that I am today…" The Elder Saiyan stated as he lost himself in memories again for a moment, his gaze turning distant and ponderant.
"You're grateful towards the people you killed…!? That doesn't have any sense!?" Karin exclaimed with obvious puzzlement, she simply couldn't wrap her head over how a single individual could kill so indiscriminantly without hesitation and not feel a single ounce of regret over his actions, and yet at the same time speak fondly of those that have fallen to his hands as if he admired them.
Bardock didn't seem the least fazed at that reaction, it was something he expected after all. "Yes, it is unsurprising that you have no idea of what I'm saying. Only an accomplished warrior that has put his life on the line on many ocassions would be able to understand my words. The thing is… Despite the fact that I've killed many… I acknowledge their strength as warriors… Not even I can ignore how long and hard they fought against me and my kind, how much they manage to force even me into a corner, leaving me no option but to overcome my own limitations or die… And believe me, there were many times were I believed I was truly done for, that my fate was to be just another casualty of the battlefield like so many Saiyans before me. They earned my respect. I know there's no such thing like redemption or attonement for my actions, I make no excuse or apologies; I know exactly where I will end up when I die. I know that I will have to pay the price for all the lives I've taken, and I'm okay with that, I can accept this fact. But in the meantime, the least I can do to honor their worthyness as warriors is to carry their memory with me… So that's what I do, I remember them, for they deserve that much. They deserve not to be forgotten, but for others to known that there once existed great warriors who died valiantly in defence of their homes, even if they failed, their sacrifice deserves to be acknowledged…" The veteran warrior stated in a rather pensive mood. His audience was taken aback for a moment after that declaration, not having expected such from a seemingly dispassionate individual like Bardock, there was clearly more to the old Saiyan than what met the eyes.
"Okay… I honestly can say that I didn't expect that… It seems there's more to this bussiness of conquering other planets than what we first expected…" Maya Natsume stated, clearly impressed by the little speech of the Saiyan Elder.
"As a rule, whatever bad things are that you think the take over of other worlds can be; most of the time is usually true. However, as the one in charge of doing the actual dirtywork, it fell to me to decide on how to accomplish my missions. I can't speak for the actions of other Saiyans, but at the very least I can say I wasn't the worst or most savage of all raid leaders. Not all planet conquests ended in a massacre, the smart races surrendered as soon as they saw our attack pods coming in. After that they had three choices: One was to evacuate their own planet and be forced to move somewhere else…" Bardock began to explain in his usual careless manner.
"Seems a little harsh to me to force another race from its own home against its will and condemn it to a life of space vagrancy…" Chun-Li stated with clear dissaproval.
Bardock just shrugged his shoulders as if it was just another facet of life. "It is, but at least they're still alive and free… The other option for the submited race is to become a client race for the empire and work to support the infrastructure of Saiyan society. Might not seem fair either, but the client races are left relatively alone as long as they pay their tithes in time and they even receive protection from our soldiers against any other ouside treath. We are by far not the only or most dangerous threat that can be found out there among the stars, so some races prefer to pay tribute to us in exchange of protection and to keep us from attacking their worlds. The third option for the subjugated race is outright slavery for the entire population, the former inhabitants would be then packed to some alien market to be sold and gain some profit for the empire, sent to a garden world to work on the farms or given to one of our client races as cheap labor…" He stated, earning outright disgusted looks from many of the people present in the room with Pan. Easily taking notice of the general disapproval, Bardock elaborated. "I did not make the rules; that's just how things are out there in space. The decision of what to do with the races that submit belong solely to the king and the nobles in charge, I'm just a lowly third-class grunt, my duty is to fight and that's all…" The elder Saiyan couldn't help to give a rueful smile after that statement. "Though I can enjoy the irony on how a third-class like me managed to become so powerful to the point that only a handful of Saiyans are capable of going toe to toe against me, and most of them are my own descendants…"
"So what is it that you did do during your planet conquering days…!? What makes you being not as terrible as other of your kind…!?" Cammy White all but demanded with an unfriendly stare, she didn't like much of what she was hearing about the Saiyan race in general.
Bardock doesn't react at the veiled accusation. "I never said I wasn't as terrible as my peers, I already told all of you that my hands are stained with the blood of billions…However, despite of what I've done, I am not so eager of engaging in senseless wanton slaughter unlike others of my race…"
"The hell…? How can you be saying things like that after admitting yourself to have commited genocide!?" Kisara Nanjo exclaimed with a clear 'WTF!?' expression, the breathing paradox that was Bardock being too beyond her rationality for her to easily understand.
"As a soldier in the Saiyan army it was my duty to accomplish the mission giving to me, it just so happened that such mission was the conquest of other worlds…" Bardock simply answered. "However, I didn't join the raid corps because of the killing. I did it because of the challenge. Because I wanted to test my mettle as a warrior against strong opponents, I didn't care in the slightest about exterminating other species. Though if some race's civilians are stupid enough to refuse to evacuate knowing there's an impending Saiyan incursion coming their way, then I'm not going to make myself responsible for their deaths when I start blasting off their cities. We Saiyans are by no means masters of subtlety, so if we were to attack your planet, believe me, you all would know it with more than enough time to run the hell away. If you are aware of the inminent flood that's about to come at you, it is your damn fault if you do nothing about it…" The elder Saiyan firmly stated without hesitation. The gathered martial artists couldn't simply refute his words since he was somewhat correct in his declaration. "But outside of examples like this, I never deinged myself to chase after fleeing civilians, more so when some of the warriors that managed to earn my respect fought to the bitter end just to allow some civilians to escape. I could have killed those fleeing people if I so much as wanted it, it would have been so easy. But to show respect to my fallen enemies, I decided to honor their wishes and let those they died protecting to flee…" He said, his mind again getting lost in memories of a time long past. His audience was left stunned at that revelation.
"That…! That was mighty chivalrous from you…!" Urd stated with a clear stumped expression, having not expected the alien mass murderer to be capable of gentler concepts like mercy.
"It was not chivalry…!" The Elder Saiyan immediately rebuked, his entire demeanor turning a little incensed."Feelings like pity or mercy had nothing to do with my decision of sparing fleeing civilians. It is simply the way I decided to acknowledge the strength of my enemies; they earned that right with their lives, the least I could do was to respect their wishes after they fell to my hands…" He declared before calming down, turning his sight above to stare at the ceiling but actually seeing at nothing in particular, just a position he needed to assume to better ponder on his thoughts. "The truth is that sometimes I kind of miss those days, not because of the killing, but because of how much my mettle as a warrior was put to the test on each battle. Gruesome engagements where only the most cunning and srongest lived and the rest died. Back during those first years, all my missions, all of my battles were just like that. Extremely fast and unforgiving dances of death were even the slightest of mistakes, a single second of inattention, would spell your own demise. Over the years I had many companions assigned to my group due to the great and almost impossible difficulty of our missions; it was a miracle if any of them managed to survive past the first engagement. I had to actually keep an eye on my companions and save their butts everytime they ended up being in a pickle, otherwiseby the end of the mission I would usually be the only one left to come back alive, which obviously earned me a reputation as a peerless warrior without equal, able to achieve victory were everybody else failed. So most of my companions either left my group or simply died, but eventually there were others who managed to keep up with my pace and be capable of beating the odds. These four fellow Saiyans became my crew, the only ones I would allow to walk at my side into battle, the only ones I could count on to guard my back. They're the only people I have the honor of calling my friends and there's nothing I wouldn't do for them, together we were known as Bardock's Elite. "He gave Cheeky smile at that. "An appropiate name considering I was the one in the lead. Together we fought the harshes of battles, together we overcome the most difficult of trials, and together we survived the worst that the universe had to throw at us and lived to tell the tale…" Bardock said with a distant gaze, his mind half-way lost down memory lane. His audience remained silent, even though many did not approve about his vocation of conquering other planets, they couldn't deny his achievements were nothing short but impressive.
"But eventually, all good things have to come to an end…" Bardock stated, his expression changing to one of milddissapointment. "As we kept winning battles and overcoming deadly threats, we continuously became more and more powerful with each success, until we reached a point were there were no more strong enemies to fight, everyone there was that could do so we had already killed or surpassed a long time ago. So from that point forward, there were no more battles to the death, no more opportunities to test our mettle as warriors… I do not like to talk about those days…" The Elder Saiyan stated with clear discomfort, something that caught the gathered martial artist and students by surprise.
"W-Why not…? Mayucchi asked timidly, trying to overcome her natural shyness to make her question.
Bardock didn't answered the question posed to him right away, instead taking a moment to consider if he felt even the slightest inclination to talk about the subject, there was a reason why he said he didn't liked to speak about it in the first place. His silence stretched for too long of a time to make Mayucchi worry, thinking she might have made a mistake by asking that question, even Pan began to be concerned a little for her elder since this was certainly not his usual behavior. "Gran-Gran…?"
Bardock ignored her and continued with his internal debate, eventually he reached a conclusion. "The years following our initial rise were one of the most dissapointing of my entire life, with no more strong opponents to fight, the conquest of other worlds became nothing more but senseless slaughter with little to no gain for my own personal goals. As a warrior, my life is dedicated to the constant improvement of my skills, by facing and overcoming greater and harder challenges I become stronger and increase my own power. Killing weaklings does none of these things for me, I gain nothing by tormenting them, my skills do not improve and I certainly don't become stronger by beating those that are far beneath me in both strength and experience. So during this time my growth as a warrior was stunted, no longer did I felt the satisfaction of overcoming difficult challenges, and instead a great apathy began to take hold of me as all of my victories from that point onwards lost any value and became worthless. With each passing day, I began to resent more and more the system that I once helped to uphold. And I wasn't the only one… Many of us veteran warriors from the planet conquest began to fell disillusioned with the direction our own empire was taking, as we started to believe that continuing working for the planet trade was a deviation from the teachings of the legendary Super-Saiyan." The Elder Saiyan confessed, once again surprising his audience with a revelation that hadn't seeing coming.
"If that's true… If your own race was beginning to have second thoughts about dedicating to the planet conquest, then why doing it in the first place…?" Chun-Li inquired with an open stumped expression.
"To answer that question, it would be required a small history lesson about my race… Not sure if you any of you have enough interest to sit and listen through a lecture…" Bardock replied as he rubbed his chin with one hand in iddle thought. The gathered martial artists took a moment to consider the words of the veteran warrior before coming to a decision.
"I say we listen to it… I am curious to know more about the Saiyan's past, there's certainly more to them than what meets the eye, even with the whole conquest of other planets." Gentoku Ryuubi said with obvious scientific excitement as she oushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with a single finger.
"Yes I too would like to know more about the Saiyan story as a species; they do seem to be quite the intriguing race even if I don't personally approve of their choice for line of work." Ken Masters said with a thoughtful expression.
"I suppose it would be interesting, and it would give us a better insight about their mentality so we can better know hoe canwe treat with them in case more members of their race than just Pan make their way here to Earth…" Chun-Li said with a shrug.
"Whatever works to avoid our planet being destroyed and all of us dead…" Cammy White deadpanned, still having her qualms about Pan's race since if they decided to eradicate all life on their planet, there was nothing any nation or organization could do to avoid such fate. And even the revelation of Gods living on Earth didn't appease her fears since according to Belldandy, Kami-sama doesn't like for either himself or his subordinates to get involved in mortal affairs. She didn't know if the impending destruction of their planet would be enough to warrant and intervention, but it was better if she didn't believe in any false hope.
Bardock was unaware of all these thoughts and simply limit himself to accept their answers and proceed with his impromptu lesson. "Very well, if that's the case then let's get on with this already… Our history starts around a hundred thousand years ago with the first appearance of the legendary Super Saiyan, known by many other species than my own as the greatest warrior that ever has existed in the universe. It was he who helped the primitive ancestors of my race back in our original homeworld into becoming a single nation that would expand into the stars to forge an empire that would encompass many worlds, thus giving birth to the period that is known to my race as the Golden Era of the first Empire. The Saiyans of the first empire were much different than those that live nowadays; instead of forging their empire through planet conquest they did so through colonization, commerce and forging alliances with other races. They earned the reputation of powerful, honorable warriors and peacekeepers, always willing to step in against any perceived injustice."
"So your ancestors were actually good guys instead of terrible alien warlords that conquered other planets…!?" Karin exclaimed in great surprise, really not having expected such revelation.
Bardock like always wasn't fazed by the reactions of those weaker than him. "That's only partially true since our ancestors had the same instincts as us, the only main difference is that they lived under the guidance of the Legendary Super Saiyan and lived their lives following the paths described in his teachings…"
"You keep speaking about the teachings of the legendary Super Saiyan, what are these teachings in the first place…? What lesson do they try to impart…?" Ryu asked with no small amount of interest, as a martial artist he has always strived to improve himself and his art, and so it has lead him to constantly wander around the world in search of knowledge that would help his grow as a warrior.
"At its core, the teachings of the legendary Super-Saiyan boil down to the lesson that one should always strive to make yourself stronger and not be so reliant on others, as true strength lies in your inner desire to overcome your own obstacles… In essence, it teaches you on how to become self reliant and face the challenges that life may throw at you, while encouraging you to constantly improve the limits of your own power." It was Bardock's immediate answer at Ryu's inquiry."Ancient Saiyans weren't that much interested in the lives and affairs of those weaker than them, just like the rest of my race is nowadays, and sought only their self-improvement as warriors. However since they lived most of their lives with strict adherence to the teachings of the Legendary Super-Saiyan, they were also pretty invested in making sure that the teachings were spread far and wide, which gave them the reputation of warrior-philosophers. So the ancients Saiyans lived traveling through the stars, following the path of strength and teaching others in how to become self-reliant. For example, when a Saiyan of old during his quest of self-improvement stumbled upon a community in some planet that was facing troubles in the form of bandits or an invading army or such, instead of fixing the problem for them and dealing with the treath, which was considered a disservice towards the people facing the problem, the Saiyan taught them how to stand on their own feet and defend themselves which eventually would led to them solving their problems on their own. More often than not the people instructed were grateful to the Saiyan for having taught them how to be strong on their own merits and would pledge a vow of friendship with our race, which usually came in the form of commerce and influence for the growing ancient Saiyan Empire…" The veteran warrior lectured as if having spoken about the subject many times before.
"So the Saiyans of old travelled to other planets in search of challenges while teaching others how to defend themselves and be self-reliant…? That doesn't sound to be a bad thing…" Bob Makihara said; he too rather amazed at how much more there was to the Saiyans than simply being alien conquerors.
"Give a man a fish and he will eat for one day, teach him how to swim and he will eat for his entire life." Crimson Viper commented to summarize what everybody was hearing.
Bardock simply blinked at that saying, founding it to be really fitting. "That is actually really appropiate to describe what the Saiyans of old did under the guidance of the Legendary Super Saiyan, anyway that is how my ancestors earned the reputation of heroes and defenders of the weak. Overtime, each sucessive generation began to believe in all the praises and accolades lauded to our race, so much that it slowly started to affect the way Saiyans behaved to what you would normally consider a traditional heroic peacekeeper role…"
"Not surprising in hindsight… If you're constantly being told that you are a hero, you would eventually start acting like one. Simple psychology really…" Foxy commented nonchalantly to make her opinion known.
The elder Saiyan agreed with that statement with a nod. "Quite so… Anyway, for more than ninety thousand years the Saiyan Empire flourished thanks to the fact thateach one of its citizens was a powerful warrior that constantly strived for self-improvement and had a penchant for the heroics. The ties that the first empire made with other races were such that we ended up becoming one of the founding members of the Intergalactic Space Federation of Unified Planets, or just the Union of Planets for short…" Bardock said, leaving his entire audience speechless at that revelation.
"What you guys were part of the founding members of the Space UN…?" Souichiro Nagi exclaimed with a complete flabbergasted expression, not believing what he had heard.
"All the great and ancient galactic empires of old convened once upon a time to discuss and forge peace treaties in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts that could culminate in long and disastrous wars between the galactic superpowers, eventually such talks developed into forging long-lasting alliances between empires, and this alliance became overtime what it is known today as the intergalactic federation. Of course the ancient Saiyan Empire of old wasn't the only one to be part of this initial alliance, there were many others besides them, all great and powerful empires in their own right: The Stellar Republic of the Protoculture, the first civilization to have come into being and reach for the stars; The Empire of Jurai, The Kingdom of Thundera, The Alteran Empire, The Sister Kingdoms of Eternia and Etheria, The territories and holdings under the rule of the Kinniku clan, Autobot High-Command, The Silver Millenium's Moon Kingdom… These and many others were the core from which the Intergalactic Federation was born, at the high of its influence the federation oversaw all of the known galaxies in the Virgo Cluster and its fringe territories. That includes your local cluster were your galaxy, the Milky Way, its located…" Bardock explained, completely uninterested about the kind of reactions that such world-changing revelations would had on either its audience or the rest of the world watching through Giru's broadcast.
!
At that same moment on England, a young blonde girl and her pet white cat watching the live feed through her PC were left reeling in shock at hearing the last name on the list of great star empires of old, both being left totally speechless at hearing that othe aliens knew about the ancient Moon Kingdom and secretely intrigued about what they had to say about it.
!
In another part of Tokyo, Minato Ward to be exact, another young blond girl with hair done in twin Odango-style tails, who staying awake late to watch the live feed in her PC since it was friday and tomorrow there was no school, began to suddenly feel a sense of déjà vu after hearing the words of the elder Saiyan, her face scrunching up in a thoughtful expression. "How odd… Why I suddenly feel as if that name should mean something to me…?" She asked to herself as she turned her head to stare at the clear full moon that was easily visible through the windows of her bedroom.
!
Meanwhile back in the Shinpaku HQ, many of the students and martial artists present had their own reaction to this latest revelation.
"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat…!? You mean to tell us that the allmighty space UN used to rule over our Galaxy…!?" Gentoku Ryuubi stammered, eyes bulging in shock at such declaration.
"Of course… Your entire civilization is built upon the bones of those that came before you…" It was Bardock simple answer. "I don't know what Pan's been telling all of you about your planet status in the bigger galactic landscape, but the reason as to why your sector of space is off-limits is because your species is living in what was once known as the seat of power of the Silver Millenium's Moon Kingdom, who were the rulers of the Milky Way for many thousands of years…" He explained, leaving all the people listening to him more and more mind-boggled with each word he uttered.
"You're saying that there used to exist once upon a time a galactic empire whose capital was located in our planet's moon…!?" Ageha Kuki asked with a 'What the fucking shit!?' expression plastered on her face. The young CEO couldn't simple believe what she was hearing.
Maya Natsume turned towards Pan with an acussing stare. "Pan why didn't you tell us!?" She demanded, feeling offended that the alien girl hadn't trusted them enough to reveal such information to them, and after all they have gone through together in the short time since they had meet.
"Because I didn't know!" It was the alien girl automatic reply. "I might know a lot of things, but I'm not infallible, and things like space politics or galactic history is not one of my strong subjects… I thought Earth was left alone because of that law that forbids advanced races from interacting with primitive species, I didn't had the slightest idea that the true reason was because of some long dead forgotten kingdom from your planet's moon. How the hell would you have expected for me to know that…!? Do I look like a treasure hunting paleontologist or a tomb raider to you!?" She snapped back, unwilling to be solely blamed for the ignorance of the earthlings.
"Yeah, I'm not surprised about that…" Bardock nonchalantly said as he agreed with Pan's statement with a nod, arms crossed in a carefree posture. "Your knowledge about the latest happenings and history of the greater universe has always been particularly limited, brat. Though I too must accept that I don't have the biggest of interests about the affairs of other species, it does pay to keep an ear on the ground for any news. But you should make sure to pay more attention about our past since the history of us Saiyans as a race is closely tied to that of the rest of the universe…"
"I still can't believe there used to exist a galactic civilization on the moon… It sounds a little too far-fetched…" Karin said with a shake of her head, her golden flocks fluttering along with her motion. She was still a little bit skeptical about what she had heard.
"Then we should ask someone else for confirmation of this new revelation. Someone versed in the secret knowledge of our world and that of its highest spheres of creation…" Nina Williams spoke, making her suggestion with her usual cold stoicism, turning her gaze towards Belldandy's direction and giving a long pointed look at the brunette goddess. "Someone like thegoddesses that have been kind enough to bless us with their presence…" She said in such an off tone of voice that it was extremely hard to tell whether she was being sarcastic or serious. Regardless, her suggestion was not without merit and many of the people present began to turn towards the kind goddess for guidance.
"Is that true lady Belldandy-sama?" Miu asked respectfully at the middle Norn, her eyes pleading for an answer.
The kind goddess remained silent for a second before answering, a brief moment of hesitation passing through her and making her question whether or not she should talk about the subject. But it was a simple fleeting feeling and she quickly dismissed it before giving a nod in confirmation. "Yes… What mister Bardock is saying is true; once upon a time there existed a great kingdom in the moon that ruled the entire galaxy, the Silver Millennium, a great utopia under the leadership of the gods that maintained the peace and stability of the Milky Way for eons." She explained, leaving her audience with even more questions and inquiries.
"Which gods are you saying that ruled this Silver Millenium again…?" Whip asked, wanting to know that particular answer since Belldandy was being remarkably vague about the identities of the deities in charge of ruling the galaxy.
Again the middle Norn seemed reluctant in giving a clear answer, but she promptly composed herself and began to speak again. "The Greek gods, though it will be more aptly to say their close relatives…" Belldandy stated a little coyly.
"You mean to tell us that Zeus once used to rule the Milky Way…?" MasatakaTakayanagi asked, rather dumbfounded at what he was hearing.
"Not exactly…" Belldandy corrected."As I have said, Kami-sama doesn't like to speak about the Greek Deities and keeps most of the information regarding them sealed off. However from what little we Megamis have managed to pry out of him, and what historical records stored in the Yggdrassil exist, since not even Kami-sama can erase or hide the accounts of the greatest events that have marked our galaxy. The Milky Way initially came to be thanks to the efforts of the deities Chaos, Caligine and Enki, also known as Ea or El, Elyon, Elohim, El-Shaddai, Yahweh and Jehovah by the ancestors of humanity." The goddess said, listing with her fingers the many names of god as to make sure her audience didn't become confused.
"The few records that I've been able to acess speak of a great pilgrimage, a massive exodus of displaced refugees trying to escape from some great calamity and led by a few divinities in charge of both their protection and the search for a new home. Once they arrived in the section of space that would later become the Milky Way, the ancient deities decided to build their new home in here, Chaos and Caligine gave birth to the first stars that would paint the night-sky while Enki worked diligently to create and give shape to the first planets that would circle around these newly-born stars. That is actually Enki's true duty, to be an architect of worlds and give them form, a duty he has never stopped from performing ever since he first began… Anyway, with the Milky Way finally having been brought into existence, the refugees of this pilgrimage began to settle in these newly formed planets and their population quickly spread through many of its systems. This event could be considered as the foundation of the Silver Millenium, with both Chaos and Caligine as its first rulers. However, the actual creation of Earth didn't come to pass until the appearance of Gaea, daughter of Hemera and Aether, who were the children of Erebus and Nyx, who they in turn were the children of Chaos and Caligine." Belldandy explained.
"Woah, give me a minute to wrap my head around that many names…" Ranma suddenly spoke up, bringing a hand to his temple as he struggled with all that information. The goddess was kind enough to give him a few moments to compose himself. "Okay, I'm fine now… Sorry about that, is just that I didn't expected to her a lesson about the family tree of primordial deities…"
Belldandy didn't mind the interruption as she was too generous to ignore the difficulties of other people. "It's alright, I know the subject can be confusing enough unless you're paying the most dedicated of attention. Anyway, as legend tells, in order to combat her loneliness for being the only child of her parents, Gaea created for herself companions to keep her company, Ouranos and Pontus, her sort of honorific children. Ouranos would later became Gaea's husband and together they would give birth to the planet Earth, Gaea created the soil underneath our feet while Ouranos created the sky, with Pontus later creating the seas, in order to get away from the politics and issues of the bigger galaxy since Gaea didn't cared much about suceeding her parents as ruler of the Silver Millenium, a task she pushed solely unto Ouranos by having him act as her proxy, and overtime both Gaea and her husband would have many children of their own and give birth to Chronos and the Titans…"
"So the old myth about Chronos and the Titans being the ultimate rulers of the whole universe before being dethroned by Zeus and the Olympians is actually true!?" Foxy exclaimed with a flabbergasted and mind-boggled expression, her train of thought totally stumped at what she had just heard.
"That is mostly true, although neither Chronos nor Zeus ever became rulers of the Silver Millenium…" Belldandy amended. "Allow me to explain… According to what my fa—Kami-sama has deing himself to tell us, the ancient deities worshipped initially by the Greeks are one of the most powerful entities in existence, able to bend, ignore or outright break the fundamental laws of the universe to their will, to move between Dimensions and travel to other realms of existence and being more than capable of both creating and destroying entire universes on their own, their power growing higher and higher the more time it passes… So in light of this knowledge, why would deities like them deing themselves to rule over a single galaxy, when each of them can rule over entire universes of their own making… And that's exactly what happened, Chronos pushed the duty of ruling the Silver Millenium over one of his kin once he dethroned his father Ouranos and became the sole soverign of all of the gods, a course of action that would later also be taken by Zeus when he dethroned his father Chronos in the same way he had done to Ouranos. The last ruler of the Silver Millenium, according to records, was Selene, goddess of the moon and daughter of the Titan Hypherion, who was the right-hand and bodyguard of Chronos. She took over the position from her aunt Phoebe at the end of the war between Olympians and Titans, and received the name of Queen Serenity once she ascended to the throne of the Silver Millenium…"
"Then what about us…" The voice of Akira Hongo said from the back of the room, drawing everybody's attention towars the sunglasses-wearing Karate Grandmaster. "If the primordial gods care very little for the Milky Way, then why bothering with revealing themselves to the ancient human civilizations in the first place…?" He asked, more like demanded, a little displeased on the gods lack of care for their own creations.
Belldandy just stared at the pointy-eared grandmaster, her mind initially incapable of processing the question posed to her right away due to her belief that the reason for such action being so obvious as to not required to be asked in the first place. But she quickly moved past her brief surprise and offered a response. "Because this planet, Earth, is special… That should have been obvious enough to all of you after all you have heard. It is Gaea's private garden that she herself created with the help of her sons/consorts to get away from the troubles of the greater galaxy, her sanctuary against a lonely unfullfiling existence. By the ancient accounts of the Mythological age, it was Gaea who gave birth to the Earth, Ouranos who gave birth to the sky, and Pontus who gave birth to the oceans. And much later, by Gaea's divine will is that you humans came to be, it was her desire for your species to be born, a desire that was carried out by her progeny the Titans. In that sense, you humans are children of the gods, destined to inherit the world by divine mandate, to rise above all the beasts of the earth, the seas and the sky, and become the masters of all that your eyes can see. By Gaea's decree you were supposed to become the new masters of the planet, the caretakers of her garden in her stead, tasked with the duty of preserving the Earth and all of its creatures that dwell within…" The kind goddess stated in a solemn tone of voice that spoke of how much of a big deal what she was saying was, her audience being left utterly speechless after what they had just heard, needing a few moments for their brains to digest this new information.
"Okay… Now I can't help but feel special somehow…" Kisara Nanjo muttered shyly with a cherry blushon her cheeks, her quiet voice being clearly heard by everyone in the suddenly silent room despite its low volume.
Chun-Li couldn't keep herself from turning towards the young cap-wearing red-head with a dead-pan. "Yes… Except for that last part about preserving the planet and all of its creatures that dwell within, considering all the pollution and damage that human civilization has caused to the world in the last few centuries, not to mention all of the species that have gone extinct because of human interference…" She said, inwardly wincing at her own statement because she suddenly began to have the sneaky suspicion that such fact was going to come later to bite them all in the ass.
The young Valkyrie simply stood there for a moment, not really comprehending what she had just heard. "Oh…?" That is until the gears of her brain began to finally turn around and she suddenly realized about the potential heap of trouble that humanity as a whole might have gotten itself into. "Oh!? Shit…! If that's the case, then I bet Gaea must not be very pleased with us humans in general…" She said, suddenly pretty unnerved as she began to fear for the continual survival of humanity.
"Yup, she must be pretty pissed at how our species have been defiling her garden rather than preserve it and look after it as she had wanted…" Foxy stated in a rather resigned tone, as if not fully pleased herself about the situation but accepting there was nothing she could do to change it nonetheless.
"You shouldn't be too concerned about any kind of retaliation or punishment from mother Gaea for having failed in your sacred duty…" Belldandy kindly said, trying to assuage everybody's worries, her voice holding not even the slightest trace of condemnation or acussation, only her usual care and warmth. But nonetheless, that particular statement made all the humans listening to start feeling like trash.
"And why is that Belldandy Megami-sama…?" Kushinada suddenly asked with the outmost respect she could muster; only the barest hint of consternation being able to be detected in her voice since she was well aware on how failing sacred tasks given by the gods themselves was a pretty fucking big deal.
"Because Zeus imprisioned Gaea the sameway he did the Titans sometime after dethroning Chronos and claiming the title of king of Olympus…" It was the middle-norn's simple answer.
"What…? Why…!?" Cammy White asked in puzzlement, not having really expected an answer like that.
Belldandy just shrugged at that question, unaware of the specifics herself. "According to the Yggdrassil records about the Myth era, Zeus imprisioned Gaea because she liked to meddle in the affairs of Olympus… The avaible records we have in heaven don't delve deeper than that, as I have said; most of the pertinent information regarding the Olympian gods has been sealed by Kami-sama himself. Only some brief and succint historical accounts remain…" It was all the brunette goddess could offer.
Mature opened her mouth to give her own two cents on the situation after that. "Considering how the old myths and legends tend not to paint a very pretty picture about the Olympian gods, and how they fought and turned on each other even if they were all related, most likely Zeus imprisioned Gaea because she was starting to prove a threat to his authority as king of the gods or some other such nonsense like that…" She simply stated in a rather bored tone, crossing her arms underneath her generous chest in a non-chalant posture.
"So, politics…?" Juri summarized what the blonde secretary had just said in a single sentence.
"In the broadest of terms, yes…" Mature acknowledged in agreement with a nod.
Pan suddenly narrowed her eyes in suspicion as she turned towards Belldandy with a pointed look. "You know despite your sister having said how you goddesses barely know anything about these Greek gods; you seem to be awfully well informed a great deal about them…" She said, doing nothing to hide her distrust.
Belldandy didn't seem the least offended about the alien girl's acussations. "As I had said, most of what I know comes from the historical records kept in the Yggdrassil, records which are heavily censored by Kami-sama himself, but even so they are useful enough to at least get a clear picture about important past events without having to go into specifics. Plus many of the facts that I just said comes from the old myths and legends that are widely known about the Olympian gods, so most of the information that I know is essentially of public knowledge that I'm just supplementing with what little I was able to gleam from the Yggdrassil's records…" She placidly replied with ease, not getting upset even in the slightest at the alien girl's taunts. The kind goddess then continued with her explanation. "The most likely reason as to why my sister couldn't give you any kind of answer when you asked her about the Olympian gods is because she rarely bothers herself to look over the records that are stored in the Yggdrassil. Being a scholar is certainly not her cup of her tea. But what she says about we goddesses not knowing much about the Olympian gods other than the basics is actually true. Despite my own researchs on the subject, there are still many things I don't know about Zeus and his kin. We don't know the location of the Titan's prison or that of Gaea for that matter, or even where they are now and what they are doing currently. All I know is that the Olympian gods reside at the top of mount Olympus in Greece, which by the way, rumor says it is a gateway to their realm in another dimension."
ANOTHER DIMENSION!
A sudden voice shouted inside the room so unexpectedly loud that many felt the need of covering their ears against the noice, the sudden interruption catching everybody off guard and forcing them to start looking around the room with confused expressions in hopes of finding the source of such souch.
"There's that voice again… Did it follow us all the way from Myoushinzan…?" A startled Whip said as she glanced all around her immediate surroundings before turning to adress Angel. "Angel…! Were you shouting again…? Why, in Belldandy's name, will you do something like that again after what happened last time!?" She demanded with an accusing stare towards the white-haired Latina. Belldandy on the other hand was left apalled that someone had used her name on an oath so casually.
Regardless of the goddess' misgivings, Angel began to frantically wave har arms around to deny the accusations being thrown at me. "It wasn't me this time! That wasn't my voice in the first place; it was way too masculine and rough to have come out from my delicate and feminine vocal cords." She declared, preening a little by the end to display her womanly charms. It simply made Whip to stare at her with a deadpan.
"If it wasn't her then who could have made that shout…?" Aya Natsume asked as she assumed a thinking pose, a hand closed pushing under her chin as her eyes became distant while she stared at the ceiling.
!
Somewhere in the outskirts of Athens, Greece, a group of soldiers decked in classical Greek armor and armed with spears suddenly bursted inside a wide and luxurious temple chamber supported by pillars in which a throne was found overseeing all over the room atop an elevated dais. "Great Patriarch, are you alright! We heard a shout coming from inside your holiness' chambers!" The guard at the lead asked as he looked around the room in search of any hidden threat.
The Patriarch in question, a long-haired man whose entire body was covered by a long and wide white robe while keeping his face hidden from view by wearing a winged red helmet and a mask in the likeness of a statuesque mute face, was leaning over the set of steps that led to the throne in the room. "Everything is fine soldiers… It's just that I almost slipped and fell over these steps here…" He said casually, trying to avoid rousing any suspicion from the men that had just bursted inside the room.
The soldiers in question lowered their spears as they began to give baffled looks at the masked pontiff. "You should be more careful with your footing great Patriarch, who will speak on behalf of holy Athena and inform us of her will if we were to suddenly lose you because of a misstep…?" The lead soldier said in chastizement.
The masked Patriarch just nodded along with the soldier's statement. "Yes, you're right… It's just that suddenly I've began to feel my years pressing down on me; the weight of the duty placed upon my shoulders can feel too unbearable at times. I am just a mortal man despite the holiness of my sacred duty… But don't mind me too much; I'm sure is just a passing fit of melancholy…" He said kindly as he stood up, although on the inside he was seething. 'You damn fool! How dare you be so patronizing towards me! Me! The Holy Great Patriarch! The highest authority in charge of Athena's temple, her voice and will here on Earth and commander of all of the armies in the service of the Sanctuary! I should make you disappear as I did that other noisy guard, yes that's exactly what I will do!'
The soldier in question was of course unaware of such dark thoughts and simply took the words of the masked man at face value. "If you're sure you are alright great Patriach, then we will return to our duties, but if you need anything we are just outside these doors your holiness…" He said before signaling to his fellowwarriors to march out of the room.
The Patriarch simply kept nodding along as he waved the guards away. "That's very kind of you. I appreciate the gesture, but I assure you all that I will be fine on my own… I just need some time alone with my thoughts and to pray to Athena for guidance…" 'Yes, scram already will you!? You better enjoy whatever time you have left to live since you will not survive to see the next dawn…' He maliciously thought as he watched the line of soldiers exiting through the main set of great doors that led into the chambers. The loud groan of the old and venerable sturdy wood from which the doors were made off echoed through the entire place for a moment before a thunderous slam signaled to the Patriarch that he was finally alone and on his own in the throne room once more.
The masked man couldn't help from letting out a frustrated sigh after finally getting rid of the interruption, assuming a thinking pose to ponder over this little incident. "Seriously, what is wrong with me? Why I've suddenly felt the need two days in a row of shouting the name of one of my signatures techniques out loud…? Did someone put a spell on me or what…? I better keep an eye opened for anything suspicious…" He mused as he began to turn his attention back to his plots.
!
Back with Pan and the others, Bulma seemed prettly dumbfounded at the oddity that had just ocurred. "What the hell was that…? Was someone shouting some technique or what? Pan, do strange voices tend to pop up often out of nowhere around you and shout so loudly as to leave you deaf…?" She asked to her honorary niece with a completely stumped expression.
"No, only pretty recently it seems…" It was the alien girl's simple response before moving on with the subject. "Anyway, just ignore the voice and it will leave on its own. Let's better return to the matter at hand…" She adviced before turning towards Belldandy. "So, if there's a lot of things that you're unable to tell us because they are off-limits even for someone of your status, then tell us what you do know…?" Pan said, making emphasis on the do. "Can you tell us then how is it that this Silver Millenium came to an end…? Why is it that there's no more magical kingdom on this planet's moon…?"
Belldandy wrung her hands together with a little nervousness, as the subject still caused her a small sense of unease. Even though it has never been specifically forbidden to speak about the Olympians and the Titans, there's still some taboo attached to it because of Kami-sama's efforts of trying to keep the subject from being raised. "Well… The records only refer to a catastrophe that ocurred ten thousand years ago as the reason for the dissapearance of the Silver Millenium and the death of Queen Serenity and her entire court, which is both surprising and terrifying at the same time…"
"How so…?" Foxy inquired with a hint of interest.
"Well… You have to understand that at its peak, the Silver Millenium ruled over the entire Milky Way, each of its populated systems swearing fealty to it and looking towards it for guidance and leadership. Even though the royal palace was located in Earth's moon and acted as the capital for a galaxy-wide empire, it was not the only holding that the Silver Millenium had on Sol. Each of the planets of the solar system had been colonized and developed by the Moon Kingdom through a combination of amazing highly advanced technology and powerful magics, and were ruled by a member of Queen Serenity's royal court, which was composed in its majority by other divinities and relatives of her and the Olympians, kin of Zeus in one way or another. Several of Zeus own children with other deities were members of Serenity's court and thus ruled over a planet of the solar system. Ancient records speak of how the Silver Millenium managed to create a process in which to empower the rulers of the planets under its authority with all of the energy and strength generated by the worlds under its protection, creating thus a force of elite divine warriors capable of wielding the power of entire worlds at their command, the Sailor Senshi…" Belldandy explained her voice gaining an awed and reverential tone as she spoke about the soldiers of the Silver Millenium.
Bardock's attention was immediately drawn at the mention of such warriors. "I know that name… Legends speak about the powerful soldiers under the command of the Silver Millenium, the Sailor Senshi, an elite military unit composed exclusively by female warriors that protected the worlds under the rule of the Moon Kingdom. They said that fighting a Senshi was the same as to fight the full might of an entire planet. Very few could face a Senshi in open combat and survive such encounter, even the Legendary Super-Saiyan held great respect for them as warriors…" He said before growing pensive and began to stroke his chin in thought. "I must admit that in my entire years as a planet raider, I never faced a Sailor Senshi in combat, their entire order breaking apart when all of the inhabited planets of the Milky Way went into disarray after the fall of the Silver Millenium…
"But what does this has to do with the fall of the Silver Millenium…? What's the point of telling us all this…?" Pan demanded, growing impatient.
"Because, even with the entire might of a legion of divine soldiers capable of wielding the power of entire worlds under its command, it was not enough to prevent the destruction of the Silver Millenium…" Belldandy replied, falling under a melancholic silence by the end.
The gathered martial artists were mildly disturbed by such declaration. "Okay… That sounded ominous…" Whip commented in a cheerless voice.
"Yeah, I'm starting to have a bad feeling in here…" Ken Masters declared, feeling a little uneasy himself.
Belldandy continued with her history lesson. "More than that, the Senshis in charge of the rest of the planets of the Sol system were also the protectors and bodyguards of the Queen and her royal line. So they were present during the final moments of the Silver Millenium and not even they were capable of stopping the catastrophe that destroyed the Moon kingdom…" She explained trying her best to make it hit home just how serious such debacle was.
"And this catastrophe was…?" Pan inquired, pressing for the information she only cared about.
Belldandy became silent at that, not really knowing how to deliver the answer to that question. As her entire semblance began to openly show her indecision and worry, a feeling of concern starting to take root inside the people present as they were less than reassured of the goddess' expression. Belldandy turned, giving showing her back to her audience, unable to look at everybody faces as she gave her answer. "It was brought about by humans…" It was all she said before demurely turning silent again.
"WHAT!?" It was the expected obvious reaction from everyone in the room.
"I don't know the specifics as you should all already be aware off… But the records speak of some great darkness that took hold over the inhabitants of the Earth, who rose against and brought down the Silver Millenium in a moment of weakness when all the gods of Olympus were far away busy on other matters… They attacked the moon capital of the Silver Millenium and killed the entire court and the Royal family in a single blow, bringing about the destruction of the whole empire and sinking the entire galaxy into chaos…" Belldandy confessed solemny, not wishing to cause distress but seeing no other option if she wanted her audience to unserstand the severity of her words.
"How…? How could it be that our ancestors decided to rebel against the gods…?" Kushinada said, forgoing schooling her expression and showing her emotions for the first time, the newest revelation being disturbing enough for her sensibilities to cause her to slip in her control.
"As I said, I don't know any specifics…" Belldandy reiterated, unable to offer a proper answer. "Something like that shouldn't have happened in the first place, since the ancestors of humanity and the inhabitants of the Silver Millenium had very little interaction with each other. The people of the Earth lived their lives peacefully on the surface of this world, ruling over all of creation as desired by Gaea, carrying on their duty of preserving all life on the planet. Ancient human civilization was pretty advanced and enlightened, almost in the same standard as that of the inhabitants of the Silver Millenium. They suffered from no scarceness or shortage of anything, whatever their wishes or desires they had them fulfilled without delay, there was no reason for them to strike against the Moon Kingdom. It was an era of peace, ancient humanity ruled over all of the Earth while the Silver Millenium ruled over the stars, by Zeus divine decree, the people of the Earth and the people of the Moon were forbidden from mingling with each other, a decree that both civilizations followed without complaint since Zeus was the maximum deity for them both in those ancient times. Yet some darkness… Some unexpected evil took hold over the hearts of the people of Earth and forced them to rise in arms against the Moon Kingdom."
"The situation rapidly escalated and became dire enough that the prince of the Kingdom of the Earth, Prince Endymion, escaped to the moon's capital to warn Queen Serenity of the insurrection. Yet his warning came too late and he alongside the Queen's daughter and heir were killed during the first wave of invaders alongside the royal court and most of the Guardian Senshi in charge of the protection fo the Moon Palace, the remaining Senshi were the next to fall, and finally Queen Serenity herself died in the end after killing the leader of the insurrection when she used her last breath to call upon the power of the Senshi of Silence to wipeout the entire invasion force in a single stroke. However, the death of the ruler of the Silver Millenium and her entire court caused the entire kingdom to literary fall apart, as the great magics and spells that kept the Silver Millenium together were tied to the lives of the protectors of each planet. The artificial atmosphere generators went out in an instant, turning all the worlds in the Sol system back into dead planets and taking the lives of all of its inhabitants with them, countless died in the first minutes after Queen Serenity's death as the entire communication network that kept all of the planets of the Milky Way in touch with each other and allowed Interstellar travel between them went out, entire systems suddenly finding themselves isolated from each other while many planets turned into dead husks left and right. Of the thousands of star systems that composed the Silver Millenium, only a few hundred planets were able to survive through the fall relatively intact. But it didn't matter since all manner of order in the Galaxy was lost to the ages, the entire Milky Way falling into a state of strife and conflict that lasted for ten thousand years. And was even worse, when Zeus discovered what humanity had done, how they had rised against the Silver Millenium and killed several of his relatives and children, he was so furious that he almost eradicated your entire species from the face of Earth, nevermind the fact that there was evidence of your ancestors having been manipulated by an external force. However, after much deliberation and counseling from his fellow Olympians, he decided to let you humans live, but his vengance was not going so easily to be denied. As punishment for their trangressions against the gods, Zeus punished your ancestors by destroying all traces of the civilization that humans had built throughout the ages ever since Gaea had given them their sacred task of preserving the world. Every piece of technology, every work of art and culture was completely erased in an instant and humanity was forcefully regressed back into a stone age, leaving your ancestors with no choice but to live in caves since all their once magestic metropolis were reduced into arid wastelands. A state that humanity would not be able to escape from until Prometheus took pity on your ancestors and stole the fire that the gods had taken away to give it back to humanity…" The goddess explained, rendering her audience utterly speechless after finishing her story.
The only one who hadn't been left mute after hearing such account was Bardock, who was acting more as if he had heard some interesting piece of trivia. "Hmmmph… So that explains how the entire Silver Millenium fell into disarray with just the death of its ruler… Certainly the age of strife was such a troublesome time…" He commented, stroking his chin in thought.
"The age of what…!?" Gentoku Ryuubi asked as she managed to partially break out form her shock at hearing what could be more historical information of note.
"The age of strife…" The Elder Saiyan simply stated. "Is a period marked in Federation history as a time of great upheaval and crisis that shook the entire Federation to its foundations and brought upon the death of several of its founding members. This period is a time of many tragedies, among them it's the destruction of the Silver Millenium, which brought an end to any semblance of order or galactic governance in your galaxy and left the entire Milky Way in a state of conflict and constant wars for ten thousand years. The eternal galactic war is how the members of the Federation called it everytime someone asked about the Milky Way. A war that finally came to an end pretty recently, only ten years ago, thanks to the efforts of the hero Gid Lucione Deviluke, who conquered all the warring systems of the Milky Way and founded a new dynasty to rule the Milky Way and bring it back into the fold of the Federation of planets."
"There's a new Galactic Emperor ruling our galaxy…!?" Souichiro Nagi exclaimed with no small deal of surprise.
"That's what I just said. Would you brats stop interrupting and let me finish when I'm explaining something. (Sorry!) Well, that's more like it." Bardock exclaimed with mild fristration. "Anyway as I was saying the fall of the Silver Millenium is one of the many important events that mark the age of strife, and yes your galaxy is now under the rule of a new galactic empire and is now under negotiations to become part of the federation of planets once more. But moving on, other important events from the age of strife are the death of the Legendary Super-Saiyan, the fall of the Stellar Republic and the extinction of the Protoculture due to a split of ideologies and civil war, the beginning of the raid campaings of the warlord Hordak which culminated with his conquest of Etheria and its separation from its sister Kingdom of Eternia, the destruction of the Alteran empire and the extermination of their entire race alongside the rise of the Galra…" At that final name, Pan suddenly recoiled back a few steps and sneered loudly, like some kind of beast bearing its fangs. The sudden reaction was so out of character that many of the martial artists around her couldn't help but stare at her pointedly.
"Pan, what's wrong with you…? Why you're acting so weirdly…?" Asked a rather puzzled Whip.
Bardock intervened promptly, not wanting for the conversation to derail further than it already has. "Easy there, don't mind the brat's reaction. Let's just say she has had some bad experiences regarding the Galra in the past and let's leave it at that…"
"What sort of bad experiences?" Asked a suddenly interested Bulma, givng Bardock an accusing look. "Does this have something to do with that trip of yours that you took her along for a year…?" She suspected.
"We can speak about that later, right now let me finish with I'm trying to say." The Elder Saiyan replied, deflecting the issue. "Anyhow, after what you've just heard, you can see why the time known as the Age of Strife is an important date not only to us Saiyans but to the rest of the universe in general…"
"Yes… I can see how losing the Messiah of your race that helped build your race's empire could be a very distressing notion…" Foxy said in agreement with a brief nod. "Plus several of the founding members of the Intergalactic UN getting wiped out is also a reason for great concern. I'm surprised that such an organization managed to continue standing despite such grievous losses, most would have disbanded long before reaching that pont." She commented with a thoughtful expression.
"That is mostly because of the efforst of the Empire of Jurai, the Kinniku clan, and the ancient Saiyan Empire. Together the remaining Galactic Superpowers managed to keep the Federation from being torn apart, and thanks to the power of their armies, protect all the territories of the Federation against the threats that assailed them from all sides. Jurai has always had the greatest armada in the entire known universe, their war vessels, the so called tree-ships, have been without equal for eons, while we the Saiyans have the strongest army despite the modest number of our species because of the great power of each of our warriors, and the Kinniku clan has always given birth to powerful and charismatic leaders and heroes that have left their mark on the universe." It was Bardock's simple answer.
"So your species continued to rule their empire and being part of this space federation even after the death of their legendary leader…" Gentoku Ryuubi asked with great academic interest.
"The legendary Super-Saiyan wasn't our ruler per se, but he was indeed an important authority figure for our race since he was the one who appointed our first king and created the set of guidelines and rules that would become the basis for ancient Saiyan Society. So the place he had would be akin to that of a spiritual or religious leader… But yes, the first empire continued its reign and association with the Federation of unified planets for another nine thousands years, keeping whatever threat against intergalactic civilization at bay and helping many newly minted space-faring gorverments and civilizations to join the federation. That is of course until little more than eleven centuries ago when the time of the fall came, and all vestiges of Saiyan civilization were eradicated from the face of the universe…" The Elder Saiyan explained, an expression of complete indifference on his face despite the fact he was talking about the total destruction of his race's culture.
"You don't seem pretty fazed over your entire species fall from grace…" Koukin commented, taking notice of Bardock's lack of emotion.
Said Saiyan simply bristled at the question. "What good would I gain by fretting over something that happened a thousand years before I was even born? Again, it doesn't have any kind of relevance in my life… But it doesn't matter what my thoughts over the matter are anyway since the fall of the ancient Saiyan Empire was an event that was bound to happen no matter what, as it had been foreseen by the Legendary Super Saiyan before his death…" He began to explain.
"Yes… Pan has mentioned this part before." Mature interjected with a nod of acknowledgement. "She told us how the legendary Super-Saiyan was known for his ability to predict future events through dreams. A real life space Nostradamus if I ever heard of one…"
The reference obviously flew over Bardock's head, but he was savvy enough to figure out what the Blonde secretary was trying to say. "I don't know who this Nostradamus is… But you are correct, the Legendary Super Saiyan was also famously known for being able to foresee future events with a terrifying amount of accuracy, he predicted the birth of a child wielding the power of the Super-Saiyan but without the capacity to control his own vast power which would led to both the destruction of our homeworld and the death of this second Super-Saiyan, which would then cause our race to be forced into an exodus through space that would last a thousand years in search of the first world that the Super Saiyan visited during those initial years of his rise as a prominent figure in both Saiyan society and the universe at large. So when the destruction of our homeworld finally came to pass, the survivors of such an event knew it was time to pack up their things and begin their millenia long journey in search of this promised world. All the remaining territories of the empire, our colonies and outposts in other plantes and star systems were abandoned by our ancestors who set out in the pilgrimage for a new home as it was prophetized by the Legendary Super Saiyan."
"And your race simply upped and leaved just like that…!? I find it hard to believe that an entire space-fearing civilization would simply abandon all of its holdings and colonies despite the loss of their homeworld just because of the words of a single individual who claimed to be able to see future, nevermind if that individual was an important religious figure or not." A rather flabbergasted Karin exclaimed, her face openly showing her clear skepticism.
"Well… You all already have seen the power of the Ryuugan that my sister possesses and all that bussiness regarding the founder of my clan, Iyo Natsume." Maya Natsume stated, turning towards the wealthy blond girl. "We cannot discard the possibility that other alien species have abilities similar to my family's gift that allow them to peer through the veil of time and manipulate future events…"
"That is actually a very good point…!" Foxy declared, turning towards Maya with a look of approval. "Pan has constantly proven time and again with her stories and recollections that whatever that can be found here on Earth no matter how odd or bizarre it can also be found out there in space in much greater quantities. So it isn't unrealistic to believe that some alien species might have abilities that allow them to look into the future or manipulate time.
Karin was properly chastizied after that statement. "I take back what I just said…" She simply said before falling silent.
Bardock just moved on and ignored the latest interruption. "Anyway, so my race traveled through space, journeying between galaxies for a thousand years before finally arriving into the world that would become our new home, Planet plant which was already inhabited by another, the native species of the planet that commanded pretty advanced tech,The Tuffles…" He said with a strange inflection to his voice when speaking the name, though his face betrayed none of his inner thoughts as usual. An akward silence then fell upon the room as the Elder Saiyan refused to elaborate after that last statement, making the people present to start feeling rather uncomfortable.
"It seems you have some issue regarding these Tuffles…?" Doctor Jackal said, being the only one capable of ignoring the awkward atmosphere, his usual pleasant expression masking every of his inner thoughts.
Bardock simply bristled at such comment. "That is… Not an erroneous statement…" He fell silent for a moment as he collected his thoughts, the memory of such times leaving a sour taste in his mouth. "There are indeed some things that happened with the Tuffles that I don't care with speaking about…" It was all he said before falling silent.
"Why? What's so special about this Tuffles…?" Juri asked wanting a proper answer.
"It's not that they're special… The Tuffles as a race aren't that particularly remarkable compared to other are a very short humanoid species, the average Tuffle barely even reaches knee-height in relation to a typical Saiyan, and they are not particularly physically strong either since they were a peaceful race. Though their technology was advanced enough to offer them enough protection against most kind of dangers… No it is not their racial traits that makes me reticent, but the memory of certain issues and revelations that were discovered after our war with them…" Bardock answered vaguely.
Regardless of the Elder Saiyan noticeable unwillingness to elaborate about the subject, there were some who didn't cared in the slightest about that and instead focused in the most trivial aspects about the Tuffles. Individuals like Momoyo Kawakami… "Well Goddamn, those Tuffles sound positively tiny. Like a race of space gnomes armed with lasers or something like that…" She blatantly declared, completely ignorant on how everybody had stopped in their trains of thought to turn and look at her oddly, the inconsiderate comment catching all the people present off guard.
"You shouldn't be saying such things like calling another species gnomes, it sounds racist…" Bob Makihara said with a frown.
The buxom ravenette simply shrugged her shoulders unconcernedly. "Not my fault that their entire species is composed by midgets. I call it how I see it…" It was all she said with a dismissive attitude.
Bardock seemed amused by the willful black-haired girl, a small smirk tugging at his lips. "Fuh… You got spunk kiddo, I like that…"
Whip coughed a little under her breath to call attention, trying to move on with the conversation. "Anyway… So what was the great deal with this Tuffles that has you so unwilling to talk about them…"
Bardock remain silent instead of answering that question, wondering if he should even make some kind of response. The akward silence began to stretch for many long seconds, almost a minute, which led many to believe that the Elder Saiyan was simply going to refuse on giving a proper answer, however he ultimately spoke again. "The Tuffles were the first race we Saiyan's exterminated, their corpses marked the beginning of our ascension back into a space-faring civilization, the start of our galactic conquest and the birth of our new empire…" He said in an awfully grave and serious voice.
"Oh…!?" Whip replied, blanching a little, realizing they had now reached that part of the story that talks about the days of the Saiyans as a race of merciless planet conquerors and space warlords.
"Why did you Saiyans decided to kill the Tuffles if they were a peaceful race as you said so yourself…!?" Cammy White all but demanded, her demeanor turning completely serious.
"Initially there was peace between our species, when we first arrived the Tuffles received us with open arms and allowed us to settle in their planet without issue, so we Saiyans were able to claim great swaths of land from the wilderness of the world to build our first settlements while the Tuffles stick themselves to their technologically advanced cities. An for a few years there was an indifferent peace between us since both of our species rarely interacted with each other, however it quickly became apparent that conflict between our races was all but inevitable…" Bardock stated grimly.
"Why…!? What reason did you had to attack a defenseless peaceful people and kill them all to the last…!?" Kenichi exclaimed with no small deal of outrage, as he was pretty affronted at was he considered to be an unwarranted genocide of an entire species.
Bardock couldn't help but bristle at the young disciple's outrage. His expression blatantly told he was less than impressed. "Careful brat, do not speak about issues you know nothing about or that you had no involvement whatsoever. For all that the Tuffles were a peaceful people; they were far from defenseless… I still carry some of the scars they inflicted me during the war with their race." He said as he brought a hand to his right shoulder and began to rotate his joint.
Though Kenichi wasn't pleased to be told off because of his righteous anger, he was curious enough to remain silent as he wondered how much strong these Tuffles really were to be able to injure a warrior as powerful as Bardock seemed to be.
The Elder Saiyan kept speaking. "You ask what reason we had to attack another peaceful species, the answer is simple: The planet we lived in was simply unable to sustain two sentient races at the same time. Planet plant is a harsh unforgiving place that is mostly composed by arid deserts and badlands, its gravity is at least ten times that of your own planet and resources are scarce and in short supply, even the search of both water and food is an everyday deadly struggle because of the extreme conditions of our home. So it was really just a matter of time before our two species ended at each throats for the limited amount of resources that planet Plant held, especially since many Saiyans began to grow resentful towards the Tuffles over the fact that they lived in their technologically advanced cities, safe from the perils of the planet while we Saiyans had to settle for dusty shabby hovels in the middle of heath-scorched deadly deserts…"
"I see…" Cammy White said with a frown, still not approving of the Saiyan's decisions of waging war against the Tuffles, but understanding it was an unavoidable and rather expected outcome when two different civilizations compete for a limited amount of resources.
Bardock continued with his tale. "Even though we Saiyans accepted to wage war on the Tuffles under the orders of our king, that didn't meant we were going to have an easy time in achieving victory. As I said, the Tuffles were a rather technologically advanced race whose weapons were sophisticated enough to manage to hurt even us, worse still, they had the numerical superiority compared to our modest Saiyan population… For each one of our number, there were at least a dozen or more Tuffles. So for ten long years the war between our races raged on, with both of our sides winning and losing our own fair share of battles. Despite their size, the Tuffles were indeed worthy opponents…" The Elder Saiyan stated, tipping his head in respect of his fallen enemies.
"I take you fought in this war for the dominance of your new home…" Crimson Viper commented after observing Bardock's behavior and noticing the tell-signs of first hand experience.
"Indeed…" Bardock confirmed with a stiff nod. "Most of my teen years were marked by the constant battles against the Tuffles, being part of the third generation of Saiyans that were born in our new home meant that the conflict against the Tuffles would encompass a great deal of my life since by the time of my birth there was already a stable Saiyan population settled on planet Plant… Anyway, despite the constant confrontations between our races the war ultimately reached an impasse, with both sides unable to achieve victory over the other, our strength pretty much equal in most aspects. It wasn't until the planet's full moon finally appeared, which is an ocurrence that only happens once every hundred of years, that the stalemate was finally broken when we Saiyans transformed into giant apes and brought an abrupt end to the war by completely anihilating the Tuffles race from the face of the planet in just a few short hours."
"Your Ozaru transformation…" Chun-Li said, having already studied that particular aspect of Saiyan physiology from the info package that Giru had send to the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of Earth.
"I see you're well informed about the abilities of my race…" It was Bardock plain answer that he delivered with his usual stoic demeanor. "Which reminds me…" He then turned his gaze towards Pan and pointed at his great-grandaughter with a single calloused finger. "Pan, do not get out at night when the full moon is visible. You have never experienced our race's great ape transformation, so you will not be able to control the strong surge of urges and instincts that such state conveys. If you transform you will undoubtly go feral and end up destroying everything around you in a hundred miles radius. So if you don't want to end up killing innocent people you should stay indoors during such nights; and this warning goes also for all of you…" He stated as he passed his gaze over all the people he was able to detect through the monitor. "Do not let her see the full moon if you value your lives, because if you don't then every single one of you is already dead…" He warned seriously, making some among his audience to go pale at his advice.
However, Pan wasn't impressed at her Elder's caution. "We already know that Gran-Gran! I'm going to make sure to take enough precautions to avoid turning into a giant ape. You don't have to scare my crew unnecessarily with your threats!" She exclaimed rather incensed.
"Pan from what I've heard when you were speaking with the princess, you've been aimlessly bumbling your way around from one troublesome situation to the next and barely managed to avoid unleashing a catastrophe in all the time you've been stranded on that planet. I'm surprised half of the world hasn't been turned into a smouldering ruin by now, so forgive me for making sure you don't end up screwing things up further than you already have…" He said, giving his granddaugher a plain look. Pan could do nothing but glower under her breath at that.
"Anyway, back to the story. After killing all the Tuffles we Saiyans spent the next few years rebulding what was destroyed during the war and laying down the foundations for our new empire. It was during this reconstruction perid that we discovered a rather alarming revelation… We all had known that planet Plant was the first planet that the Legendary Super-Saiyan visited during his rise in ancient times, but we didn't expected for him to have left behind records and accounts of his stay on the planet nor that the Tuffles had dedicated themselves to preserve such knowledge for future generations…" Bardock confessed, his demeanor turning stoic all of a sudden.
"What are you trying to say…?" Gentoku Ryuubi asked, feeling a sense of dread swelling in the pit of her stomach.
"It turns out that the Legendary Super-Saiyan saved the ancestors of the Tuffles once upon a time from some space pirate or such, and in gratitude they decided to praise him as a hero of their race. The deep respect the ancestors of the Tuffles had for the Legendary Super-Saiyan was so great that they decided to become the keepers of all the works and knowledge he left behind after his departure, a task that the Tuffles themselves inherited from their ancestors, but also the deep reverence and respect they had for the Legendary Super-Saiyan caused them to modify their own looks into one akin to his own image once their technology was advanced enough for them to perform such modifications on their own genome, giving birth to the modern Tuffle race that we Saiyans exterminated, which explained why the Tuffles had a humanoid look that was very similar to our own minus the tail and their own short stature as a race… So yeah, what a great irony that we Saiyans ended up killing all those that had preserved the knowledge of the only figure we worship as a species…" Bardock said with a chuckle devoid of all mirth.
"I bet that must have stinged pretty good when your race realized you had all murdered the lore-keepers of your precious Super-Saiyan…" Cammy White said in a voice lacking any sort of sympathy. She still clearly dissaproved of the genocide of an entire species for whatever reason and couldn't help but showing a little hostility towards the Elder Saiyan because of it.
However, Bardock didn't mind her outrage since he considered it to be justified. "You are correct in your assumption; the revelation did hit us pretty hard because most of the warrior caste follows the teachings of the Legendary Super-Saiyan with an almost religious zeal. I myself had most of my formation years being influenced by them, it is one of the reasons that I've been able to pull through all the challenges and odds I've had to face through my entire life. I don't know what kind of man I would be today if I hadn't turned towards the teachings of out greatest ancestor for guidance… So yeah, the threat of rebellion and sedition among our ranks became awfully real once we discovered the full consequences of our actions, so knowing he had to act fast before his newly founded empire fell into pieces, our king had us built a starship in order to visit other planets and find new challenges and enemies to fight. To turn our mind away before the full weight of our actions smashed upon us. The first planet we visited was Arcose, home of the Arcosian race. There we learned that the Arcosians were a species of great wealth and technology, however their planet was no longer suitable to hold life forms akin to their own, so they hired a group of our warriors to attack and take over a new planet for them in exchange of money and technology. They also were the ones to introduce us and get in contact with the Planet Trade Organization, thus beginning the reign of our race as brutal and merciless planet conquerors…" The elder Saiyan explained; a strange impassive expression on his face as he spoke.
"Your race's past is quite brutal and filled with violence and bloodshed…" Belldandy said, daring to speak towards Bardock once again after their less than stellar first conversation, her face clearly showing the grief and pity she felt on the inside. "But tell me mister Bardock, what do you feel over the fact that you exterminatedthe race that had preserved the knowledge of your race's greatest hero…?" She asked with a great interest for such answer.
Bardock took some moments to ponder over such question. "What do I feel…? I don't know why you all have this fixiation of talking about my personal feelings…? They have barely any relevance in the matter… Are you asking if I feel regret over what I did…? As I've already said I barely give any thought over the lives I've taken, yes I can understand how much of a disgrace it is that we ended up killing every single one of the keepers that had protected the works of our ancestor for generations. But seeing it from a logical point of view, there was practically nothing that I or anyone else could have done to prevent such outcome. As I had said, planet Plant is a harsh merciless world were resources are in constant shortage and it is a deadly struggle to survive the day. So it was pretty much inevitable that a confrontation between our races would ocurr, it was just a matter of time… But as I said, the Tuffles are the reason much of the legacy of the Legendary Super-Saiyan survives to this day, and they were the first worthy opponents I ever faced, the first one to push me to my limits and either force to suceed or die… I do remember them too, and sometimes, sometimes I think what a pity it is that they all are long gone, even if it is because of me and the actions of my race that they are all dead… I do miss them…" The Elder Saiyan said, growing pensive as his stare turned distant for just a second. Belldandy didn't comment and just remained silent as she watched the old warrior.
"Bardock… Did the fact that you killed the guardians of the Legendary Super Saiyan's knowledge have something to do with your race's decision to abandon the practice of conquering other planets…?" Bulma asked at the old warrior intently, having already entered in a researcher's mentality since she hadn't heard yet this side of the story about the Saiyan's rise as planet conquerors and sub-sequent abandonment of such practices.
"Partially…" The Elder Saiyan confessed. "As I had previously stated, many of the elite veteran Saiyan warriors began to grow dissillusioned with our government once there were no more enemies to fight, plus now that we had too much free time we once again began to remember the entire issue with the Tuffles. Luckily for the king he avoided having to deal with a full-blown rebellion on his hands due to the fact that as a warrior race we Saiyans need constant new challenges, new enemies to fight, otherwise we turn against each other in the hopes of finding a worthy opponent. So the warrior caste was busy fighting against itself instead of entertaining thoughts of rebellion. But I was the one who took these years the worst…"
"How so… I mean, you already told us how you felt after there weren't any more enemies that could challenge your race, but why do you say that you were the one who took these years the hardest…?" Maya Natsume asked with particular interest.
Bardock turned his gaze towards the lilac-haired girl, his face a statue of pure stoicism. "I already explained how I used to only take the most dangerous and suicidal of all missions, invasions that not even the best from the first class warriors were able to come back from alive…" He asked to the room in general and received silent nods in return. "We Saiyans have a great capacity to adapt and overcome any challenge; our bodies are able to compesate from any kind of injury we receive and become stronger because of it. Everytime we have to recover from some grievous or life-threatening wound our strength and power increases, depending of the severity it is possible for us to become as twice as powerful as we were before being wounded, and in some instances even more than that. And the method employed to heal us does not hinder our bodies capacities for improvement, so using the advanced medical technologies that we managed to obtain from the World Trade Organization and from reverse-engineering some of the Tuffles' technologies, we are able to recover from even the most serious and life-threatening of injuries in matter of hours. So a warrior like me, who took only the most unbelievable hard missions with an almost hundred percent guarantee of failure and usually ended up being the only survivor that managed to come back alive by only a hair's width, clinging precariously to the flame of his life that was just a breath away from being burn out… Well, let's just say that my rise in power was abysmal…" He said, leaving most of his audience shocked once they managed to properly register his words.
Chun-Li brought a hand up to cover her mouth in complete stupefaction. "I remember the healing chamber that Pan used to heal Juri's wounds, she managed to heal her from grievous wounds that would have taken her years to recover from and would had left sequels that she'd have to deal with for the rest of her life in only forty five minutes, and she completely fine as if she had never been injuted in the first place… If a man like you with the capacity of becoming stronger after each time he heals from a wound and the acess to such technology on a regular basis… Then your power must be beyond belief…" She exclaimed with an utter dumbfounded expression.
"Indeed… I am the most powerful Saiyan of my generation, and for good reason. All the battles that I've fought, the near death experiences that I had to endure turned me into the epithome of a warrior… And that is why those years when Saiyan rule over our galaxy was completely unchallenged were some of the worst years of my life. As a warrior without peer not even my fellow Saiyans could compare against me, even the elites of the warrior class were beneath me, so unlike them I didn't had the luxury of fighting other Saiyans of my class to stave off boredom. So I had a lot of time during many pointless exterminations of lesser races to think about the direction my race was taking and of what we had done to the Tuffles, how much we were straying from the path of strength that the Legendary Super-Saiyan had taught to our race. So eventually, I came to the decision that such course was no longer what was best for our race…" Bardock confessed, leaving everybody taken aback by his revelation.
"You had a change of heart!? Does that mean that you no longer wanted to take over worlds…?" Little Honoka asked with child-like curiosity.
"It was the logical conclusion that I would reach by following the teachings of the Legendary Super-Saiyan. As I had said, the teachings say that growing stronger and improving yourself by constantly facing and overcoming greater challenges should be the one goal that a Saiyan should strive to achive in his life. Taking over the worlds of those who were weaker than us and killing those who couldn't defend themselves was not an efficient way of improving oneself or growing stronger, no you actually atrophy your skills by engaging in such actions, they teach you nothing and you don't even gain any kind of satisfaction from the act unless you're some bloodthirsty maniac that gets his kicks from killing other people. And even then such feelings are merely transitory; they don't last for long before you're in need of your next fix…" Bardock said with no small amount of distaste.
"Is that really your opinion or isn't merely something that is expected from you as a follower of the Legendary Super-Saiyan's teachings…?" Cammy White inquired rather sharply, harboring her own distrust over if the elder Saiyan was being really truthful or not.
"It is what I eventually realized for myself. No one taught me anything or influenced me in anyway to reach this conclusion, and if you think Saiyans care one bit what others think, then you will be heavily mistaken. No, before I finally found my own - I only had myself to rely on, it was always just me and the teachings… I don't know if any of you aould be able to understand what I am saying, but have you ever read something that seemed that had been written especifically for you…? Because that's what happened to me the first time I laid my eyes on the teachings of the Legendary Super-Saiyan, and it is not just because what I read reached me at a deep emotional level, no… It is also because I've seen with my own eyes how the teachings have prove themselves to be true, I've experienced them myself many times during my long life. The way the teachings explain how the nature of the world around me is and what should I do in order to overcome its challenges, all that has stared right at me in the face so blatantly that I had to be a damn blind fool to not see it."
"Sounds like a very deep shit…" Juri commented blunty.
"Seems the teachings of your ancestors do truly help in allowing you to find your own place in the universe…" Gentoku Ryuubi said, fixing her glasses. "So I assume you tried to make up for your past actions…"
Bardock just gave Ryuubi a weird look for that comment… "Maybe you humans try to amend things once you are struck by the full weight of your sins, but we Saiyans are not like that. As I had said, with no more challenges in sight of me and the continuous disappointment that I felt for having to commit pointless genocides… A great apathy began to build up inside of me… I did try to tell my fellow Saiyans of my discovery and attempt to change the ways of our empire, but I knew it to be a hopeless endeavor, most Saiyans simply weren't interested about what I had to say or if they did simply comformed themselves with the idea that it was too late already to do anything… So seeing how many of my race simply didn't care about our development as a species, I too began not to care about them in return. So that was the first and only time I tried to change the ways of my race, from that point onward I knew what we were doing was wrong, but I simply didn't cared anymore to get myself involved. I saw how my race continued to stray away from the path dictated by the legendary Super-Saiyan, yet I did nothing to try to stop it…" The elder Saiyan confessed, with a great deal of self-recrimination on his voice.
"That's actually worse than just being a mindless killer!" Cammy White exclaimed in outrage. "At least then you had the excuse of not knowing better, but you did know better…! You knew what your race was doing was wrong, yet you simply didn't care and did nothing! I have no words to express just how horrible your sheer callousness was!"
"Yes Gran-Gran, I can't believe that of you… I feel I lost some of my respect for you…" Pan declared as she gave an appealed look to her elder.
Said elder simply growled and tossed a fulminant glare to his great-grandaughter. "You're not in a higher moral standing to be making such kind of comments, brat! So shut your trap! I can let your friends rage and insult me all they want, because frankly their words are nothing compared to what I've already lived through. This is one of the reasons why I don't like to remember about those years, because I'm fully aware just how much of a pathetic piece of shit I was… The most powerful warrior in the entire Saiyan army yet I was completely incapable of even trying to take the reins of my race and lead them into a better path, just how useless can a single man be…?" He said with obvious disdain. "And with every year that passed, things kept getting worse and worse. I kept retreating into myself and distancing from the rest of my race as my fellow Saiyans continued delving deeper into hubris, warriors battled each other in deadly duels with the hope of staving off boredom while whole species died around us, at the rate we were going, it was only a matter of time before we Saiyans ended up destroying ourselves. At some point something had to give…" Bardock declared, painting a rather grim and bleak picture.
"So what happened?" Momoyo Kawakami asked with unusal seriousness as she could honestly relate with what the Elder Saiyan was feeling, for she too had experienced that dismaying feeling of inaccomplishment when everything that you do is just to easy and you start to lose sight of the value of life, a feeling she had to endure for many years until she met Pan and experienced her first defeat in her whole life…
"My son happened…" It was the immediate simple answer of the veteran warrior. "Kakarot…"
"My grandfather…?" Pan asked with a puzzled expression since she hadn't expected such answer.
The elder Saiyan nodded. "Yes… It is thanks to him that I finally got a much needed reality check and moved my lazy ass and drag the rest of my race into the correct path…"
"How so…?" Asked a curious Kenichi.
Before he could open his mouth to answer, Bulma beat him to the punch and gave him a cautionary word and a warning stare, because she knew exactly what the Elder Saiyan was refering about and didn't want him to reveal sensitive information that she knew could be potentially disastrous if revealed, namely the fact that Dragon Balls existed in other planets in the universe besides her homeworld. "Bardock… I think you should focus your story solely in your battle with Goku, we don't have the time for another long story about an old adventure and how we ended up being tangled in such mess in the first place…"
For all the accusations of Saiyans being dense regarding social cues, Bardock was able to catch unto Bulma's unspoken meaning, his observational skills and instincts telling him to pay close attention to the consort/princess of his race;always being aware of his surroundings being one of the skills that has help him survive to this point after all. "Mmmmph… I suppose you're right…" He casually replied as to not raise suspicion. "Anyway, to make a long story short, me and my son ended up fighting in singular combat in some distant alien world after he had challenged the might of the Saiyan Empire and defeated all of our most powerful warriors, including the King and the prince themselves. I don't want to get into details, but let's just say my, up to that time; estranged son was getting in the way of the plans of the ruling caste. The situation became serious enough as to call me, the most powerful Saiyan at the time to deal with him… We fought… And it was the most challenging battle I had in a long time… That's when the legendary power of the Super-Saiyan made act of presence once more upon the universe after more than Ten thousand years, when my son reached such legendary levels of power after I killed one of his friends. I obviously, despite my power, I was nothing against the power of a Super-Saiyan, and for the first time after many years, I felt the cold and sweet embrace of dead near to me once more. But more than that, I felt hope for the first time in my life swelling inside me, hope that there was more than just the pathetic state I had found myself stuck at for decades, that there was something even greater to aspire to. And so, it was thanks to my son that I got the necessary push to advance into the next stage myself. And so, the first two Super-Saiyans to walk the universe in ten thousand years did battle in the surface of a remote alien world. Our fight was the stuff of legends, the oceans boiled and entire continents sank beneath the waves as our fists clashed and the very earth under our feet was torn apart by the mere shockwave alone. By the end of out battle, a couple of planets had been turned into galactic dust…" Bardock said, a great pleased rueful smile appearing on his face as he remembered the first encounter with his son.
"You destroyed a couple of planets…!?" Momoyo Kawakami exclaimed, not in shock but as if she were delighted by that information, her eyes showing a clear shine of interest.
"It was the greatest battle I ever had up to that point…" Bardock confessed. "In the end despite my greatest efforts and my new-found power, my son managed to defeat me. Against all odds my own son had surpassed me, despite all the deep wounds I was sporting and the fact I could barely lift even a single finger, I couldn't help but feel proud of him… But the planet we had fought on had been greatly damaged all the way to its core because of our battle, so we were left with only a few scant minutes before the planet succumbed to its wound and imploded, and rather than leave me there and abandon me to my fate, my son decided to grab my broken body and take me with him. We barely managed to escape from the planet's destruction and after having some time to lick my wounds and heal, it was pretty clear to me what I had to do from that point forward…"
"You finally got your ass moving and decided to change things in the Saiyan Empire…?" Urd supposed.
Bardock nodded at that. "Correct, the battle with my son was what I needed to break out of my apathy and start taking more direct action in the affairs of my race. So I talked with my son and explained him what I intended to do, which he agreed, and wished me good luck in my endeavor since he was planning to return to the world he called home, back to his friends, wife and child. So we parted ways and I went back to my own homeworld and hunted down all the most prominent veteran warriors and clan heads and forced them to stop their useless conflicts between themselves and strive for a better future for our race."
"You speak about making your race abandon their savage conquering traditions, which was a good thing, but what do you mean that you forced them…? Forced change never a good thing, especially when you're talking about changing the way of life of an entire culture overnight, such thing would certainly breed major discontent, not to mention outright rebellion and defiance towards your plans…" Chun-Li states with a frown as she didn't like the fact that Bardock had to coerce most of his race against their will to agree with his point of view.
"That may be so for you humans, but the Saiyan way of life has always been about the rule of the strongest, ever since the days of the first empire. Only the truly powerful can lead our race, only the truly powerful can exhert their will over others or force their views upon them, only the truly powerful have the strength to break the chains of fate and take command over their own destiny… Only the truly powerful can afford to be kind… All this is in the teachings of the legendary Super-Saiyan. So all I had to do was gather the most prominent warriors of the nobility and flare my power, after seeing me wielding the power of the Super-Saiyan, whatever thought of ignoring my voice went flying right out of the window. So yes, my fellow Saiyans listened and had no choice but to submit to my will..." Bardock explains as if it were a mere fact of light, some like Kushinada, Cyril Rahman, Diego Carlo, Kazuya Mishima and others, simply nodded in understanding as if there was nothing wrong with that.
"It was that simple, just like that?" Sakura inquired with a mildly disbelieving stare. "What about the king of your race? Didn't he attempt to resist at seeing you trying to usurp his power…?"
Bardock just shook his head in a negative. "No. It was actually the other way around… The King himself was very eager to comply with my demands, fearing that if he tried to resist I would had simply taken the crown and the throne from his cold dead corpse. I told him right from the beginning that I had no interest of taking the leadership of our race from him, it had been the legendary Super-Saiyan himself who had appointed his line as the rulers of our people, so that meant there must have been something in his blood that would at least allow him to do a passable job at it, so I wasn't going to change that. Plus the legendary Super-Saiyan himself was never a ruler of our race, he was a figure of authority all right, but he was more of a teacher and a spiritual leader rather than a king, and I've never had the slightest inkling of ruling over my race. I care nothing for politics and have zero taste for diplomacy; regardless of how brutal and savage the Saiyan's particular brand of politics might be. No… I would have been a terrible ruler as a king; that much I know for certain. So I was just going to kick the collective ass of my race out of their hubris, the same way my son had done to me, and set us in the proper path of strength…"
"I see…" Spoke a thoughtful Foxy. "It seems this legendary Super-Saiyan did cast a great shadow over the universe, even after many millenia of his death, to make your race easily submit to just by having attained the same state of power as him..."
"More or less…" Bardock admitted with a shrug."It is true that by that time, most Saiyans only paid lip service to the figure of the Legendary Super-Saiyan andhis teachings since they believed them to be more like moral guidelines than training tools that would help them develop their own strength, there were those who still had a fanaticaladherence to the teachings, but they were usually in the minority. However, seeing a devoted follower of the teachings like me, wielding such legendary power was enough to convince most detractors that there was indeed something to the teachings. So in the end I made an ultimatum to my fellow Saiyans: They could continue doing things the way they were doing so far, fighting among themselves in an effort to stave off the boredom at not having any more enemies to fight and ultimately gaining nothing for their efforts, or they could follow the path of strength dictated by the legendary Super-Saiyan and strive to become like the warriors of old and have a chance of gaining the power of the Super-Saiyan just like me… Turns out there wasn't much soul searching my fellow Saiyans had to do before seeing things my way, they were all pretty desperate by that point of a new challenge. So our empire began a major re-estructuring of its policies, the King enacted ancient treaties that had been made by our ancestors and met with representatives of Jurai and the rest of the Federation of planets to ask to be accepted back into the fold and adhere to their laws…"
"And the Federation was simply okay with that and accepted to integrate back into its ranks a previously rogue state nevermind the fact of it being composed by the descendants of one of its founder members." Cammy White asked with obvious distrust.
"Feh, obviously there were some reservations about us, Saiyans, joining back into the Federation. But we Saiyans are not a dumb race despite our brutal ways, and we do take pride of the accomplishments of our ancestors and honor their memory in our own way. So as to preserve the memory of the first empire, we Saiyans were very careful about making sure that the planets we invaded were not part, or allied, with the Federation. So despite having conquered thousands upon thousands of worlds and either exterminated or exiled just as many races, both the Federation and Intergalactic police could do nothing to prosecute us for such acts since the territories we invaded were not part of their juridstiction." Bardock simply explained…
"You've got to be kidding me…!?" A disbelieving Karin muttered under her breath. She wasn't the only one that felt like that as many like Chun-Li and Cammy were rather apealled that the Saiyan practically got away Scott-free for their crimes after having conquered and killed of thousands of planets and races. It leaved a bad taste in their mouths.
Bardock kept speaking, unaware and/or uncaring about his audience inner thoughts. "So after the dignataries realized we were being truthful with our desires they were suddenly much more open to our overtures, of course there were certain terms we had to fulfill if we wanted to be part of the Federation, the most prominent was the abandonment of the conquest of other planets and our secession from the World Trade Organization…"
"Feh… I bet your former allies didn't take that well…" Juri stated, knowing full well how that sort of things tended to turn out, many times she has seen the fallout between less than disreputable organizations during her time in Shadaloo, and the bloodshed that normally tends to come immediately after.
The Elder Saiyan just nooded at that. "Of course they weren't… But we Saiyans were serious about finding a new path for our race; and so we severed every and all ties we had with the WTO." Bardock then smiled, a dark and cruel smirk forming in his lips as he raised a fist and closed it harshly for emphasis. Energy gathering around his hand and making his fist glow slightly. "And I mean that in a very literal way… I personally took care of tying a lot of loose knots, and give our resignation letter to many of the high members of the WTO. Let's just say that after our departure, the WTO was no more, their former power and influence broken and scattered throughout the universe, all that was left was a wretched shadow of their former glory. A state that even to this day they have been unable to recover from…"
Juri gave a dark smile of her own after hearing that. "Sounds like fun times…"
"I admit our former allies gave us enough of a challenge as to be considered a passing entertainment, but nothing more than that. Anyway… We still retain some tense relationships with the Pirate guild, since although we inflict them a serious hit to their slavery and smuggling operations by destroying the WTO, they cannot afford to alienate one of the few safe trade hubs they have to sell and unload their illegal goods that the territories of our empire represent. So they keep silent about their opinions and cotinue to do business with us as if nothing had happened, making sure not to draw attention when in our territories, but we are fully well aware they would have attacked us as retaliation if only they had the strength to face our warriors in battle… So we always keep an eye on them in case they try something…"
"As long as they know their place; who cares what those weaklings migh think…" Kazuya Mishima stated, speaking for the first time since Pan came back to the HQ.
"That is the exact thought of our nobility…" Bardock said. "Anyway, turns out that joining back with our old allies was exactly what we Saiyans needed to find new challenges… As the greatest and best well known center of 'civilization' in the known universe." The veteran warrior made some air quotes. "The Federation is assailed from all sides by enemies who seek to bring down the only and last bastion of order and governance in the universe; they fight against constant raids and invasions from pirates and warlords like Hordak, face head-on and without fear against tyrannical opressive empires like the Galra to curtail their influence." Again, at hearing that name, Pan reacted rather negatively."And are always at the look out for rogue elements that might try to sow chaos and discord throughout the universe… So yes… Unlike our time in the WTO, being part of the Federartion means we now belong to an entity that at times seems to deal with constant and unending heaps of trouble, while we Saiyans carved our new empire inside the Borderlands, the Federation was busy fighting against endless armies of criminals and would-be conquerors, and whatever other cosmic horrors that sometimes are spit from the depths of dark space… And that's not to mention the constant plotting and infighting that is prevalent between the great spheres of power inside the Federation. So yes… We Saiyans found the challenges we were craving for by joining the Federation once more, even today the aftermarth of the many disasters during the age of strife can still be felt strongly, and the Federation is always in need of powerful soldiers to help it push back the constant incursions of its enemies… So you could say it was a combination of opportunity, desperation, and politics; lots and lots of politics, what allowed my race to return to the fold of the Federation…"
"Dammit! I didn't expected for things to be pretty messed up out there in space!" Kenichi declared with a face of astonishment.
Ken Masters just limited himself to rub his sinuses to stem the sudden headache he was felling. "I really shouldn't be surprised at hearing the Space UN doing something like that. My own country has done its own fair share of shady dealings and controversial decisions in the name of national security…"
Crimson Viper just nodded at that. "It seems that once more the greater universe mirrors the ocurrences here on Earth but in a much bigger scope…"
"Hmmmph… For all the talks about superiority and cultural enlightment, all races tend to make the same stupid mistakes… Anyway, seeing how most of my race was now eager and pretty capable of grasping its own future, I decided to retreat from the constant troubles of the greater galaxy and spent my time with my stranged son and his family. So me and my mate, left planet Vegeta and retired to the world where my son lives." Bardock replied.
"Planet Vegeta…?" Bob Makihara asked with puzzlement.
"Ah yes, I forgot to mention… After the end of the war with the Tuffles, the king of our race decided to change the name of planet Plant to planet Vegeta in honor of his new-born first child. Not important for my story… Regardless… Only my closest friends from my elite group decided to accompany me in my retirement. Since then we've been living in my son's planet, looking for a new meaning in life as we try to continue improving ourselves and help my son in defending his world from the powerful threats that seem for some reason be attracted to his world. Threats like Cell or MajinBuu…" Bardock said as he finally reach the end of his story.
"So that's my story… It is not a pretty tale, my life has been filled with violence and bloodshed ever since I have capacity for reason… But that's how things are out there…" He said, trailing a little as he stared at the ceiling, gaze distant. He the snapped out of his daze and pointed a finger at Pan. "And that's why I know you Pan are going to be incapable of dealing with all the new rush of emotions and instincts that your re-grown tail will bring you… It will now undoubtly kick-start the next phase of your body's development, and hell if it will not be a handful for everybody involved. For the next few months your aggression will sky-rocket, and you will start to consider any other female that tries to challenge you in any form or calls your decisions into question as a rival, and you well damn know how we Saiyans deal with rivals, isn't it…?"
That brought a slightly concerned expression upon the alien girl's face… "Saiyans tend to lash out against anything that tries to challenge our authority… It is the reason as to why our race doesn't have enemies… Because they are all dead…"
"Exactly! Considering how questionable some of your own actions have already been, actions that are more in line of what I once used to do during my days on the WTO, which are pretty much a far cry from your usual behavior, I can certainly say you are already under the influnce of your repressed instincts and thus you're incapable of living among other people without someone there to keep an eye on you!" Bardock declared with all the certainty that only a lifetime of experiences could tell.
Pan reacted pretty negatively at that accusation. "Well I'm sorry for not being a perfect little soldier that can kill only when ordered too! Not all of us want to grow up into brute fighters who are useful for nothing more but punching things to death! So forgive me, for having aspirations and wanting to do other things in my life that don't revolve around fighting!" She exclaimed, her rage visibly flaring up as she turned Super-Saiyan for a moment and the walls of the building began to shake with a distressing intensity. But as soon as her tantrum came, it was suddenly gone and the alien girl turned around and walked out of the room in a huff.
The gathered students and martial arts simply moved to a side and let her pass, doing nothing to try and go after her as they were too scared to set her off in another much more destructive tantrum if they said the wrong words and instead letting her cool off on her own. All except Momoyo, who had a contemplative look on her face as she saw the alien girl walking out of the room before turning towards her younger adopted sister."C'mon Ganko, take me after Pan…"
The petite girl immediately turned towards Momoyo with an unnerved expression at hearing that order. "A-are you sure, Onee-san…? I-I don't think is a good idea…"
"Just do it!" Momoyo said with finality as she grabbed Ganko from behind in a piggy-back.
Ganko just sighed… "Okay… Onee-san, if you say so…" She said in resignation before going after the alien girl with Momoyo hanging on her back.
That really didn't set well for some of the other people looking. "Wait, Momoyo! What are you doing!?" An anxious Yamato Naoe exclaimed as he went after his two wayward adopted siblings. He was quickly followed by the rest of the Kazama Family.
"Gooddamit Momoyo, you always have to get involved in some stupid scheme…" Ageha Kuki commented in irritation before going too after the willful raven-haired girl.
"This isn't going to end well, isn't it…?" Kenichi asked Miu with a deadpan…
It was Maya Natsume who answered him. "No… We should better make sure those idiots don't disturb Pan further…" She said, before decidedly walking towards the exit as she grabbed both Kenichiand Miu by the collar and dragged them behind her while at the same timeshe adressed her sister and fellow students from Todo. "C'mon Aya, move along… You three, too…" Having nothing better to do, Bob, Souichiro and Masataka complied with the order of the Elder Natsume sister.
The rest of the people present in the room simply watched as the sudents went after the alien girl in silence, little Honoka also wanted to go, but she was held back by the Ryonzanpaku masters. Once they were gone, Bulma let out a tired sigh as she began to rub the bridge of her nose. "Well… That could have gone better…" It was all she said.
Bardock just gave stiff grunt in acknowledgement but offered no further elaboration.
The Turquoise-haired scientist just gave a pointed look at the elder Saiyan. "You know you have a great deal of fault as to why Pan turned out that way, right…?" She said in a tone that clearly told she expected to be answered.
"I know…" It was the simply response from Bardock.
"She began to act like this after you brought her back from that little trip of yours… Just what the hell did you showed her when you two were travelling through the universe to cause such change in her personality…?"
Bardock remained silent for a moment and just stared back at Bulma with a rather serious expression, trying to find the right words for the situation.
Bulma however, was in no mood for evasives. "Well…!?" She demanded.
Bardock kept staring, biting the interior of his cheek, before finally opening his mouth to talk.
!
They found Pan outside in the destroyed backyard, sitting atop a pile of rubble as she looked up and stared at the starry night sky. Whatever thought must have been occupying her mind had to be rather important because she didn't noticed that she wasn't alone any longer amoung the broken remains of the backyard.
Being the personification of subtlety that she was, Momoyo simply had Ganko bring her close to the alien girl as she called her with a simple "Hey!"
Pan was immediately snapped out of her train of thought at the address of the willful ravenette, and turned her gaze away from the night sky to give Momoyo an incredulous look. The rest of Momoyo's friends and Todo students just stared with a look dread as soon as they arrived and saw what the Kawakami was doing.
Pan stare turned flat at recognizing Momoyo, as if she should have expected something like this. "Oh…? It's just you…" She said in a rather unimpressed tone. "What do you want…!?" She demanded with a slight trace of irritation.
Momoyo simply smiled, that full-of-herself smile of hers, as a rather nervous Ganko let her down and she approached the alien girl to sit right next to her… "I thought maybe we could have a little talk… So… Things got pretty tense in there by the end…" She asked with all the blunt approach of a rampaging rhino.
Luckily for her, that is the exact approach one needs when dealing with someone with Saiyan blood running through their veins. As it is, Pan simply rolled her eyes and leaned back… "You're telling me…? I was there if I remember correctly…" It was her sarcastic reply.
"It's just simply that it's seems to me that there's a story in there to make you snap at your great-grandfather like that…" Momoyo said, showing she was more perceptive than what she appeared to be at first sight.
The alien girl just gave her a suspicious look."What's with you…? Why the sudden interest in my life story…?"
Momoyo just shrugged non-chalantly. "I am curious, call it an interest in the first person that has proven more powerful than me… Plus, it seems you might need to talk about what's bugging you to get that chip off your shoulder…" She said, trying to point at the alien girl but failing miserably as she almost ended up falling on her face.
Luckily Pan caught her before she slammed into the ground and righted her back up. "Thanks!" Momoyo said with an impish smile.
The alien girl ignored the gratitude of the other girl and replied to her previous comment. "Chip on my shoulder you say… Just what makes you think that telling you about my life would make me lose up? Can you even begin to understand the issues I'm dealing with…!?" She said with some irritation.
"Well, I do feel I can relate to you in some aspects… I feel there's a connection between us after our battle." Momoyo said with her usual upbeat attitude.
Pan, obviously, was pretty skeptic about that statement. "Oh, really!? Well, tell me! Have you ever felt as if you're being yanked into several directions at once and believe that you're about to be torn apart because of it!? Having to juggle between the weight of a family were all the males are warriors that expect of you to become a fighter, or at the very least learn how to fight, when you would rather prefer to do something else with your life. While at the same time dealing with an obnoxious grandmother who tries to force you into forgetting all that your male relatives have taught you and instead push you into becoming a (cerebrito) that can spout the theory of entire books from the top of her head. And to top it all off having your own instincts betray you… Feeling deep inside you the call for battle, to have your blood starting to boil at the very idea of engaging in violent bloody combat against a powerful opponent, yet ultimately, finding nothing but dissapointment as you are simply too powerful that most warriors can't simply compare with you and are left leagues beneath you. Feeling how an almost overbearing frustration builds within you at having nothing that can teste your mettle, no challenge that might push you to your limits, while at the same time living under the constant shadow of your family's past feats and achivements that you cannot help but feel ashamed for having none of your own that you begin to question if the pursuit of strength is even worthy in the end…" The alien girl said with great resentment before turning back to the Kawakami heir. "So… Can you trully begin to understand what I am feeling…?"
Momoyo to her merit immediately answered with no hesitation. "Yes I can… At least in that last part…"
The alien girl just gave a surprised look that Momoyo had answered her question so fast without a single trace of doubt. The ravenette elaborated. "Pan… You're not the only one that has felt dissapointment and frustration at being unable to find opponents that can challenge you. I can't remember pretty well right now if I had already told you this because of the hits you gave me. But ever since I was a child I've been living with the constant dissatisfaction of being more powerful than all of my peers, children several years my seniors and even adults were incapable of withstanding my strength as I defeated them without even breaking a sweat. It… Well… I must confess that it really messed with my head real good not having anyone that could give me any challenge, I began to take a lot of unnecessary risks, which in hindsight I admit they were pretty reckless, as to make things interesting. I handicapped myself on purpose, fighting against my challengers with one hand or with my eyes closed even when facing armed opponents, the hunt for cheap thrills became an obsession for me, anything that could allow me to break through the monotony and boredom that overwhelmed me was a godsend… That's why I and Ageha became somewhat friends, she was the most powerful fighter before I took the title from her and at the time she gave me the most challenging fight I ever had up to that point. The fact she didn't fell unconcious after my first hit certainly helped her in earning my respect. I really like her, she was a good fighter. But after losing her title, she began the lose interest in martial arts and dedicate most of her time to running her family's company, and as result… She's not as powerful as she once was, and I've surpassed her years ago. It kinda' hurts to see a person you esteem greatly going to waste in such way and not reaching her full potential, I admit I've been distancing from her on purpose a little because I can't stand watching her squandering her talent as a fighter…" Momoyo confessed, unaware she was being listened on by Ageha and the rest of the Kazama family from a small distance, a frown marrying the pretty features of the Kuki heiress as she had never imagined what Momoyo really thinked about her.
Momoyo continued speaking. "So without the only person that could give me something close of an actual challenge setting his interests somewhere else, I was left once more having to deal with the boredom that comes from being at the top of the world… So I tried a lot of things to distract myself, like playing videogames or going out with my friends… But the frustration due to the lack of a sense of accomplishment was always there, bubbling in the deep recesess of my mind. It even has gone as far as to affect my romantic relationships since it is hard for me to find a boy up to my standards that can catch my attention as all of them are much weaker than me. So I started to flirt with other girls as a way to pass time, and because I find it to be fun and relaxing. But I've never been serious in my advances towards other girls… I thought I was doomed to a life of unsatisfaction, but then you came… You Pan, suddenly appeared without previous notice and began to make waves and draw the attention of the entire world, a girl from another planet wielding great power, posessor of an unbelievable strength that made all the most powerful warriors of the world fell at her feet like leaves scattered by the wind. And suddenly, for the first time in my life, a flicker of hope began to swell within me. That finally someone capable of fighting me head-on and give me an actual challenge had appeared, so I was really excited about metting you after I saw you kicking ass on TV and fighting that Goddess. And when I finally did, our battle was more than I had ever imagined even in my wildest dreams. Not only did you take everything I could toss at you without flinching, but you even managed to defeat me. Me, who had never tasted the flavor of defeat in my entire life, it was the first time I had found myself facing someone stronger than me. I must say, after finally having my wish come true, I felt more relaxed that I have ever been in my life. It is as if a great weight that I didn't know I had has been lifted from my shoulders, now I feel as if there is a new world out there for me to discover. No longer do I feel the boredom and frustration that have been prevalent for most of my life, and instead a great feeling of excitement seems to burn inside my chest. It is as if a veil has been lifted from my eyes and I finally have been able to see the light of the sun. Now that I know that there are much greater levels than my own, I feel delighted at the prospect of making an effort to become much stronger than what I am now…"
Momoyo then turned towards the alien, a big wide smile filled with joy plastered on her face, much different than her usal cocky and playful smirks. "And all of this it is thanks to you, Pan… You saved me from myself, and dispelled the fog that had been clogging my senses, and so I feel it is my duty to return the favor and help you overcome your own troubles…" The ravenette declared as she struggled to lift her hands and encompass Pan's face with them, the gesture might have been looked intimate if Momoyo didn't had a look of outmost seriousness on her face. "I wasn't kidding when I made the promise of catching up to you one day... So make no mistake, I will become just as strong as you are right now. It is not only a promise, but a certainty. The strength that I wield I gained it by myself with only my own effort, and now that I have something to look forward to, I will not stop until I have achieved my goal. So I will become as powerful as you, and on that day we will have our re-match and I will give you the battle that you crave for and help you get rid from all the frustration and dissapointment that burdens you the same way you did to me. It is simply a matter of time…" She declared with all of the most unwavering certainty, that there was not a single doubt in the minds of those who heard her words that she was going to accomplish her objective. Pan too didn't held a single a doubt that she couldn't keep from shuddering in anticipation and excitement at the thought of finally have found someone that could rival her. It was in that moment that she realized that Momoyo was truly a special individual.
The ravenette kept holding Pan's face between her hands and even began to slowly caress the sides of her cheeks with her thumbs, her features turning from stoic to warm. "Oh, Pan… If only you would know how much it means to me that you have allowed me to fulfill my dream, I can't even begin to explain how grateful I am for such gift. There's a flame in my heart now that burns everytime I'm around you. I really don't care about fully pursuing a relationship with another girl, but because of this flame in me, I feel as if I could make an exception only for you." She said before she slammed her lips with those of the unprepared alien girl in a searing kiss. A rough and ungentle caress that was driven by equal amounts of desperation and eagerness, in this single gesture Momoyo tried to pour all of her feelings, her excitement, her exhilaration, her gratefulness, her desire and passion, and tried to communicate them all to Pan. The alien girl could do nothing but just stand there ram-rod and frozen on her spot as Momoyo kept trying to pour all of her being into her through her mouth.
After a long kiss that left all of the fellow students who were watching blushing furiously, Momoyo parted her lips away from Pan and moved away, a thin, fine and crystaline line of spit still joining their mouths together. The alien girl just stared with a look not quite horrified or scandalized, but it certainly told she hadn't been expecting to be kissed again with such eagerness… She kept staring at the buxom raven-haired girl and didn't take her eyes of her as she slowly and metodically began to wipe her mouth with a thumb.
It was then that it dawned on her just how honest Momoyo's feelings had been. And it was in that exact moment that the horrified look made act of presence. "You are being truthful… Fuck!" She exclaimed, stupefeid. "Fuck! I really don't need this right now!" She declared with mild panic as she brought a hand to her temple to stem an incoming migraine.
Knowing there was no use in indulging into panic, Pan decided to give a proper response to the raven-haired girl. Turning towards Momoyo she said. "Look, I am flattered you feel that way towards me… Really I am. And I appreciate that you wish to help me in dealing with my issues, the kaios know I have a great deal of them… But I don't share the same feelings towards you since I don't have any kind of interest in other members of my same gender. I don't feel the slightest bit of physical attraction towards you. And no matter how many times you try to kiss me, it will not change the fact that I prefer boys over girls. Though I do acknowledge your feelings and can't help to be moved by them, I'm afraid I am not able to reciprocate them…"
Momoyo just smiled, no seeming in the least offended by Pan's refusal. "It's… Alright… Really, it is… I really didn't have much hope for you to feel the same way I do. Though I cannot avoid feeling a bit dissapointed at your rejection… I can understand your decision and not let it affect me that much. You are just an exception in my preferences, not the rule after all. Though that doesn't mean I will not stop trying to woo you in the future…" The ravenette declared, her face showing again that impish smirk of hers. Pan supressed the need of rolling her eyes as she figured out she really should had expected such an answer. "In any case… Do you think you can now tell me what is bothering you…?"
The alien girl turned her gaze back towards the starry night sky, her attention again being occupied by whatever inner debate she was pondering on. "I've told you already that I have somewhat of a strain relationship with certain members of my family… My relatives are a rather diverse bunch if I say so myself, and sometimes it is inevitable for frictions to ocurr among us. There's a great deal of diference in the way of thinking between each member of my family, and at times they expect things out of me that I really can't say I'm interested about… My paternal Grandmother would like nothing more for me but to be a model student that always gets high marks so that I would one day become a Productive Member of Society…" She said with airquotes. "And she can be pretty insistent to the point of frustration, so in order to get her off my back I approached my aunt Bulma to help me with my studies since she is the most intelligent person that I know. Not for nothing she has been labeled as a genius, her quantum entanglement communication array should be proof enough of just how smart she is… It was her who taught me about science, engineering, computer programming, robotics; a whole bunch of advanced scientific fields to the point I am able to build a space rocket capable of reaching your planet's moon with the tools one can find in your regular (ferreteria). After being apprenticeshiped under her, well let's just say that I don't care much for regular learning institutions like schools or universities since there's practically not much they can teach me compared to my aunt Bulma's private mentorship. It was also there during my studies under my aunt that I developed a liking for fashion because of all the time that I spent around my younger cousing Bra…"
"Wait! You like fashion!?" Kenichi exclaimed in surprise as he certainly hadn't expected a confession like that. "But you dress pretty… Huh…? Humbly…?" The young disciple amended, realizing just in time who he was speaking to and stoping himself from saying something stupid.
It did nothing to keep Pan from staring at him as if he was a moron, however. "Do you really think I will wear fancy clothes for training or fighting and run the risk of them getting shredded like my pants did during my fight with Momoyo? Kenichi, don't be an idiot; there's a time and place for certain types of clothes. And before any of you ask why I haven't weared any other type of clothes in the time I've been on this planet: 1) Todo had its own obligatory code of dress and by the ancestors if it wasn't a tacky one… That's why I decided to wear the boys' uniform rather than the girls'. And 2) Ever since it was revealed that I'm an alien, I have been forced to deal with a bunch of idiot would-be-villians and their criminal organizations with world domination fantasies that have wanted to capture me for their nefarious purposes. So forgive me for forgetting to change into something nicer when I have assholes gunning for my head, not to mention entire goverments from several nations spying on me. That is one of the reasons why I had Giru hack in your planet's sattelites and land lines and set up my live feed, to make sure no government has the fancy idea of trying some secret black op shit on me when the eyes of the entire world are focused over me, also since I have nothing to hide due to the fact I don't even have and actual place that I can call home on this planet…!" The alien girl ranted a little.
Kenichi tried to appease Pan by lifting his hands in an untreatening gesture and apologizing to her. "Okay, okay I get it! Taking all those things into consideration it is not a surprise that you havent thought much about fashion lately…"
"Still it doesn't change the fact that it is really a great shock for all of us to discover that you like fashion. We would have never thought something like that coming from you Pan…" Miu said with an astonished face.
The alien girl just sulked at that, a cloud of gloominess appearing above her head… "Is it really so surprising that I have other interests that have nothing to do with combat or martial arts…? Is it so hard to imagine that just like any other girl I too have dreams of looking pretty…"
Miu winced at that, knowing that she had screwed up and insulted Pan without meaning too, the alien girl's mood simply deflating into a depressed state. It was Christiane Friedrich who spoke up and offered some consolation to the Saiyan teen. "Of course not! All of us girls want to look good from time to time, the fact we are all here strong women who can kick ass doesn't mean we cannot look fabulous while we're doing it…" The blonde German girl said as she flickled one of her twin-tails with a hand…
Momoyo agreed with that sentiment. "That's right, Pan. It is our duty as the most powerful martial artists on the world to set an example for all to follow, not only in terms of strength but also in great looks." The ravenette declared with no small amount of arrogance as she assumed a pose that heightened all of her charms, especially those she had in the front. Despite the seductive pose, the males in the group just deadpanned at that kind of answer.
"So you guys, don't find it strange that I like fashion despite my expertise in martial arts and combat!?" Pan inquired tentatively, a hopeful look on her face.
Momoyo took the opportunity to get cozy with the alien girl as she passed and arm over her shoulders, never one to miss chances in getting her way. "Nah huh! It is only proper for the strongest warrior to also be a paragon of beauty… A certain standard has to be mantained you know, in order to demostrate how much we stand over the rest by constantly showing our superior charms, strength, looks, intelligence and skills to the world!" The ravenette declared with a lot deal of pride as she puffed up her chest, speaking in a matter-of-fact-tone as if she were saying some basic universal thruth about creation.
"Intelligence, you say… Yet I've seen your scores at school Nee-san, they're nothing to write home about…" Yamato Naoe said with a sweat-drop.
Momoyo just waved her adopted brother comment away imperiously, as if it was a meaningless thing without relevance. She even lifted her nose up at him. "You know very well Yamato that I could ace all of the classes at school with top marks if I were to put my mind into it, they just simply haven't been able to hold my interest long enough for me to deing myself to put more than just the barest minimum of efforts into them. Such plebian subjects are simply beneath me…" She sniffed in such a holier-than-thou attitude that all the students present couldn't help but sweatdrop at her sheer arrogance.
Luckily for everbody present the alien girl moved the discussion along. "Oh that's great! I was a little worried for a moment that you all were going to hold against me the fact that I like fashion; Gran-Gran has never approved of that preference of mine and tends to look down at me at times because of it, he believes it to be a superficial distraction that only takes my time away from training… (Sigh) Just another issue I have with my family…
Momoyo scoffed at that. "Well, that shows what he knows…"
"Maybe… But I do respect him, I might not always see eye to eye with his outdated views of the world, but he was there for me to take up and continue my training after my grandfather abandoned us all…" Pan confessed with a little resentment.
"Your grandfather…? Isn't he who the goddesses have been saying is the most powerful warrior in the universe…? A mighty hero and savior that has the respect and admiration of all the space gods that rule the afterlife…" Ageha Kuki inquired, interested in this particular piece of info.
Pan couldn't help but bristle at that. "It's been more than ten years since I saw my grandfather… For all he is praised as a great hero and warrior, he certainly cannot be bothered about spending time with his own family. It is because of him that I began in my instruction of martial arts; he helped me take my first steps into the world of fighting and showed me how to enjoy the art for the sake of the art itself… I used to look up at him, growing with his stories about the greatest battles he fought. He was my hero and I wanted to be just like him… But then one day during one of the world martial arts tournaments that are held in my world every three years he just simply decided to take one of the participants as his apprentice out of the blue and drag him into a training journey…" She said with air quotes… "That's the last time I saw my Grandfather, apparently it is more important to him to train random orphans that he has never met in his life than to finish the training of his own granddaughter…" She said with clear hostility, but then she shoowk her head to forget all about the subject. "Anyway, it was a good thing that I still could count with the help of my Gran-Gran, Piccolo-sensei and even uncle Vegeta because otherwise I would have never been able to finalize my martial arts instruction and I would have been ended up stuck as a half-assed trained apprentice…"
"W-W-What about your father…? Isn't he-e also a p-p-powerful warrior who p-participated also in the battle against Majin B-Buu…? Why c-couldn't he help w-with your t-training…?" Yukie Mayuzumi asked curious despite her usual nervous stutter as she had been trained in the art of the sword by her own father and wondered why Pan's own father didn't trained her in martial arts.
The alien girl let out a tired sigh at that question. "My father… Well, as my aunt Bulma already explained during her retelling of the battle against Majin Buu, times of peace are simply not kind towards my father as he tends to let up on his training and focus on other things instead. Piccolo-Sensei has to intervene and kick my father in the ass from time to time to keep him shape and make sure he's in the same level with my Grandfather and Gran-Gran. So he rarely spends any amount of time training me… Don't misunderstand, I love my father greatly, he's always been understanding and kind, but… but… He's a pushover who always caves into the demands of my mother and grand-mother and since my grand-mother doesn't want me to learn martial arts and know how to fight and instead would like for me to start acting like a proper lady… Well, let's just say it is hard for me to look at my father as a figure of authority…"
"Oh…" It was all Mayucchi could say since she couldn't imagine how she would react if her own father was like that…
"So yeah, that's the reason as to why mainly my Gran-Gran from all the rest of my relatives was the one who train me… Though that meant that I had to listen to all of his lectures as to how a true Saiyan should act according to the teachings of the legendary Super-Saiyan…" Pan said with another said.
"And you found that boring I bet…" Momoyo said as she wasn't much for lectures or history lessons too…
"No, actually the teachings of the legendary Super-Saiyan are very interesting scriptures full of wisdom that many times have simply clicked right with me for some reason since they somehow seem to make perfect sense to me… No, that was not the problem… The problem was that my Gran-Gran has the tendency of becoming preachy from time to time, saying how much I should stop wasting my time on frivolities like my preference towards fashion and that I should focus more in my training and become stronger instead of wasting my time on going out shopping with my cousin… It is annoying that several members of my family have different and often contradictory expectations about me that they wish me to follow, sometimes I feel as if I'm being pulled into several directions at once… And… And… This are all just stupid excuses…!" Pan raged, grabbing a piece of debris from the mount of dirt she was sitting on and throwing it far in a fit, the present students just stared incomprehensively at her outburst.
"Woah, Pan! Calm down… Why do you say that all of your worries are just excuses…?" Maya Natsume asked, rising her hands in a non-threatingly manner in order to placate the alien girl somewhat.
"Because that's what they are! Just stupid excuses… Despite the many issues my family has, I never let any single of them to get to me… I didn't even cared about them! Wasn't even aware, or spared a single thought about them… (Sigh) The truth is… I am slipping… Ever since I came back from that year-long trip with my Gran-Gran, I've been having many doubts… About my life, about my family, but most of all about myself…" Pan confessed, getting pretty melancholic as she bent forwards to hug her legs. She then turned her head to a side to look at Momoyo and the rest of the students that by this time had already gotten near her. "Did you know that once upon a time I was much more powerful than what I am now…?" She said in a clearly depressed mood.
That declaration caused many to be taken aback. "What do you mean you were stronger than what you are now!?" Ageha Kuki exclaimed mind-boggled. Momoyo on the other hand, looked even more delighted as if Christmas had arrived early.
Pan wasn't fazed by the reactions of her apprentices and Momoyo's friends and simply drawled her answer with a still low mood. "My Super-Saiyan states… All three of them are completely unnecessary since I was already capable of achieving a much superior state… One that I was capable of acessing almost instinctively since I have use of reasoning… But, ever since I've returned from that trip, I haven't been able of unlocking it again. My full power, gone… Why… Why I am unable of reaching the same heights as before…? What happened to me!? Why did I lose my strength! Why did I had to become aware of what is out there!?" The alien girl declared in a very upset demeanor, growing more and more frantic with each passing moment that all of the young students watching her began to become pretty worried for her sake.
"Pan… Pan! Calm down, Pan! You're starting to make us nervous!" Maya Natsume exclaimed as she rushed at the alien girl and began to shake her to snap her out her sudden attack of panic. The lilac-haired girl's actions were enough of to break Pan's train of thought, but it did nothing to hade the rather disturbed expression on her face. For a moment the alien girl didn't know where she was, her eyes unfocused and wild, but then the light of realization began to shine in them and she began to calm down once she was capable of noticing her surroundings, cold sweat falling from her brow.
After allowing her to breath for a few moments to settle down her nerves, Maya began to inquire about that little episode. "Pan, what the hell happened to you? Why did you suddenly reacted in such way…?" The Elder Natsume sister asked with clear consternation on her face, that sudden fit of panic being so out of character that even Momoyo had been unnerved by it.
"I'm sorry… It's just that for a moment I began to remember the terrible things I saw during that trip…" Pan replied through ragged breath.
"Terrible things…!?" Maya inquired with an incredulous face. "Just what kind of terrible things did you saw to make you react the way you did…!?"
"Terrible horrible things that were capable of scaring even me and my great-grandfather…" Pan declared, freaking the hell out of her listeners since that single statement didn't gave them even the least of reassurances.
"Scare you!? YOU! Just what the hell can be so terrible as to scare even you!?" Maya all but exclaimed in incredulity.
Kenichi gulped in nervousness, figuring out that maybe they shouldn't be prying about this particular subject. "I don't know guys, but I think it is not a good idea to ask Pan about something capable of scaring even her…"
Ageha Kuki swallowed hard a wad of saliva down her sudden dry throath, but she steeled herself to press forward. "We have already pried enough to back out now… Besides if you all truly wish to help Pan overcome her issues, then having her speak about her fears to another person will surely do her a lot of good…" She said rather reasonably despite her own misgivings.
Pan seemed to consider those words seriously for a moment, giving them a lot of thought despite her reservations. Finally, she turns towards the gathered students surrounding her and proceeds to open her mouth.
!
Back inside the Shinpaku HQ, Bardock began to speak about the last trek of the trip he had taken Pan throughout the stars. "They are known as the Galra…"
Well this is where I cut the story for the moment, it was already getting delayed enough as it was.
Anyway, lot's of more world-building in this chapter, sorry if someone found that part boring, but I like to be thorough and this is actually an important part that should be squared away as soon as possible to avoid confusion. It is a drag I know, but it is inevitable since everytime I introduce a knew serie in the story I have to squeeze and describe a 300+ chapters manga in a way that people who has never read such manga can understand, get the gist of it and make sure it meshes and interconects well with the rest of the series that are already in this story. We return to that matter about turfs that I raised during my explanation of the demonic species that serve Hild and live in Makai.
This time is the turn of the gods, So now I have connected Oh My Goddess, Sailor Moon and Saint Seiya together and being pretty specific about how they stand apart form the rest of the deities from Dragon Ball, using only facts stated in their respectives mangas and filling the holes using apects from our real world mythology. Note that I need to specify that this causes for the interpretation that I'm giving to these gods to have nothing in common with the way they are described in the real world. Especially since both Sailor Moon and Saint Seiya, two different mangas, are deeply interconnected due to their roots with Greek mythology and have their own take in these mythologies.
How so, well in Sailor Moon's manga it is specifically stated that Sailor Pluto is the daughter of Zeus, considering that Zeus had hundred of children with different lovers, (human, fellow goddesses and whatever) I had to look for a suitable counterpart for Pluto in mythology. I once read in a story of another author how he made it so to state that Pluto's real identity was the Titaness Mnemosyne, goddess of memory… This is incorrect since Mnemosyne was the aunt and lover of Zeus, not his daughter (yes the Greeks gods were an incestuous bunch, especially Zeus, so get over it) However, Mnemosyne did provide me with the answer to find a suitable counterpart for Pluto in mythology.
Mnemosyne daughters with Zeus are the Graces, of which they are 9 of them: Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Erato, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia and Urania; each one of them representing a distinct art or science like, dance, song, history, etc. Still, none of them seemed suitable as a counterpart for Sailor Pluto identity that is until I discovered that originally the muses were only 3 which then later increased to 5 and then they kept changing over the years until becoming the 9 muses we known today. Of those original muses one in particular named Mneme is identified as the muse of Memory, holding the same field of governance as her mother Mnemosyne. And thus for the purposes of this story Sailor Pluto true identity is Mneme the muse of memory, whose parents are Zeus and Mnemosyne since it fits quite nicely with what is stated in the manga and allows for a bridge between Sailor Moon and Saint Seiya to be created.
On this subject, in the Sailor Moon manga it is also specifically stated that Queen Serenity (Sailor Moon's mother) was known by the people of the earth in ancient times as Selene the goddess of the moon. In the actual myth, Selene is known as the Titaness goddess of the moon, the actual personification of our planet's satellite, who drives her moon chariot across the heavens. She is the daughter of the titans Hyperion and Theia, and sister to the sun-god Helios, and the goddess of the dawn Eos. She is best known for her affair with the beautiful mortal Endymion. In the actual myth Endymion is known as a handsome Aeolian sheperd/hunter/king, who either lived in the region of Olympia in Elis, or in Mount Latmus in Caria which is located in the west coast of Asia minor. The myth tells how Selene fell in love of Endymion's beauty that she convinced Endymion's father, Zeus, to put him to sleep so that he could remain deathless and ageless for eternity, and each night Selene would visit him while he slept. From this encounters 50 daughters would Selene give birth to Endymion.
Obviously, Sailor Moon's interpretation of the myth is quite different since it is Selene's daughter, not Selene herself, who falls in love with Endymion who is king of the kingdom of the Earth. In the actual myth the only daughters of note by Selene are Pandia and Ersa (Since the names and identities of the 50 daughters she had with Endymion are lost to the annals of time, I simply couldn't find them anywhere) However, both of these divine daughters are children of Zeus, which fits pretty well with what is described in the manga since we never know the identity of Sailor Moon's father but we do know she's a goddess and daughter of Selene. Of the two possible candidates, Ersa is the goddess of the dew so that leaves her out as possible counterpart for Sailor Moon. However Pandia or Pandeia, meaning all brightness, has a tighter connection to the thematic of the moon, as it was originally believed that Pandia might have been an epithet of the goddess Selene before being turned into a daugther of Selene and Zeus. Pandia, also known sometimes as Pandia Selene, was believed to have personified the full moon. All these little snippets of information certainly points towards the true identity of Sailor Moon, but the most glaring piece of evidence is her name Pandeia, meaning all brightness. The last line in the Sailor Moon's manga is a sentence of Endymion's inner thoughts regarding Sailor Moon, which reads: Sailor Moon you will forever be our most shinning star… Taking this in consideration and for the purpose of this story, Sailor Moon's true identity would be Pandeia, daughter of Selene and Zeus and goddess of the full moon.
Now why do we focus so much about Sailor Moon's ties with the Greek Myths and its gods, because in Sailor Moon's manga another fact that is specified is that the people of the Silver Millenium are refugees from another reality that came to our own to escape the destruction of their own universe, the ancestors of the Silver Millenium arrived to our universe carrying with them the Imperial Silver Crystal that Sailor Moon uses in the manga. It is because of this fact that I believe the Silver Crystal was created from the destruction of an entire universe, it is what remained after a whole plane of existance ceased to exist, it literally holds the power of an entire universe going boom which would explain why its such an overpowered rule-breaker in the manga. With this in mind and taking in consideration all the ties with Greek mythology it is safe to say that all of the Greek gods are beings that came from another universe, which makes them to stand apart from the rest of the deities described in Dragon Ball and explains why there's a satellite soul office in the milky way since having an entire galaxy that stands apart from the rest of creation would certainly cause turf issues regarding the souls of the deceased in such galaxy. And although the deities and demons from Oh My Goddess! Are related to the Greek Gods, the fact they are allied and under the authority of the local Soul Office, means that the Greek Gods might not accept or acknowledge their authority if a confrontation were to happen since it was not the Kaios who created the milky way.
So now we have, Oh My Goddess!, Saint Seiya, Sailor Moon, Yu Yu Hakusho and Dragon Ball in the mix and now you know which territories each one of these series posses and how they relate with each other. Regarding the question of who created the actual universe in which the characters of Dragon Ball and other space races and series are from, well… In Dragon Ball Super, Zeno is the highest authority in charge of the multiverse, however it is never specified that he created the universe, only that he is the one in charge of overseeing it. Taking this into consideration we can also add Tenchi Muyo into the list and have the Choushin, the tree goddesses that created the multiverse in Tenchi Muyo, that is to say Washu,Tsunami and Tokiomi, to be the ones that created the universe in this story and Zeno is simply the one who is in charge in their stead since none of them rule the multiverse and instead prefer to carry out their experiments to see if they can find a superior existence than even them. So it is pretty easy to say that the Greek gods and the people pf the Silver Millenium came form somewhere else outside the boundaries of their creation.
It is for this same reason that I couldn't use the most common Myth of Gaea being a primordial being born out of Chaos and giving birth to Ouranos and Pontus on her own before marrying to Ouranos and creating the Earth. I actually used a little combination of the classic myth from Hesiod's THeogony that tells: After Chaos, "wide-bosomed" Gaia (Earth) arose to be the everlasting seat of the immortals who possess Olympus above, and the depths of Tartarus below. Gaia brought forth her equal Uranus (Heaven, Sky) to "cover her on every side" and to be the abode of the gods. Gaia also bore the hills (ourea), and Pontus (Sea), "without sweet union of love" (A.K.A with no father). Afterwards with Uranus she gave birth to the Titans. She lay with Heaven and bore deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos [Cronus] the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire. With the interpretation of the Roman Hyginus that says that Earth (Gaia), along with Heaven and Sea were the children of Aether and Day (Hemera). Hyginus also gives the entire family tree that I gave, all the way to Chaos, which fits pretty well with the idea of having the Silver Millenium exist in a same universe as Saint Seiya, which in turn makes Gaea being Chaos great-grandaughter instead of just her daughter.
I also took some liberties of my own in order to add Fate and the Nasuverse into the mix by combining the god of christianity and Judaism with the god Ea from the Zoroastrian religion, again this is just artistic liberty and in now way shape and form relates to the actual way both gods are depicted in real life. Though I'm not the only who takes liberties since the series themselves take liberties of their own in each of their interpretations about the deities that appear in them.
For example, in Saint Seiya it is specifically stated that Athena is the youngest child of Zeus, and thus the youngest of all the gods, whereas in the actual myth Athena is Zeus firstborn. Also in Sailor Moon, both Sailor Pluto and Sailor Saturn have their positions swapped since the actual roman deity that represents death is not Saturn but Pluto, Saturn is the Roman counterpart of Chronos, the titan that rules over time and who's father of Zeus/Jupiter. The actual Roman counterparts of the deities that give their names to the planets of the Solar System are as follow: Mercury/Hermes, Venus/Aphrodite, Terra/Gaea, Mars/Ares, Jupiter/Zeus, Saturn/Chronos, Uranus/Ouranos (Which by the way remains actually the same and doesn't change its Greek name since the actual Roman name is Caelus), Neptune/Poseidon and Pluto/Hades. So in this instance Hotaru should have been named as Sailor Pluto and Setsuna should have the name of Sailor Saturn, but whatever, their names remain the same since that's their identities in the actual manga. Although since Hotaru holds dominion over death, that would make her being a daughter of Hades, the only one of the daughters of Hades that I could as an appropiate counterpart is Macaria/Makaria, the embodiment of blessed death.
Anyway, all this is a pretty interesting subject that I would like to talk more about since it is really pretty engaging, but I've wasted enough time as it is… So just to finish, regarding the Protoculture, I had to chose between Macross and Robotech but in the end I chose the original Macross since Robotech is a mish/mash of three diferents series made by the same studio but bungled all up together for western audiences, and I personally don't like that. The same could be said about the inclusion of the Galra since this is the Galra empire that appears in the modern Legendary Defender and not in the old Defender of the universe since that one too is a combination of two different series and the original Go-Lion gets kinda infantile at times and doesn't provide the right amount of darkness and grittines that I desire, plus Legendary Defender it is actual original content that is developed and drawn from zero by the same studio that made the avatar series, so yeah pretty baddass. For the others, He-Man, She-Ra, Thundercats, Transformers, they are from their original 80's cartoons.
I know many of you are not pleased about certain things that I do, my interpretation of Pan being at the top of the list and something I have already acknowledged I'm having trouble with and I'm already taking steps to try and correct it (which by the way you should save your opinions regarding this and other similar subjects for next chapter since I had to cut this one short and there are still many things I need to adress and had to move to next chapter) and the many stupid random shit I like to say in the notes sections and that really havery little or no impact at all with this story. But bitches you can't deny the fact that I excell at world-building, I told you all from the very beginning that I wasn't simply going to be adding mangas and series just because, they all have their places and functions in regards to the greater whole and are interconnected all in between in some shape or form. So World-building is also one of the reasons why it takes me some time to release some chapters since I have to thinks how certain elements will relate to certain aspects from other series.
In any case, as always make sure to review, tell your friends about this story, sent me a PM for any doubt or clarification and I'll read you all next time.