The Game of Life: Dragon Ball Edition
A/N: "The following is a fan-based work. Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, is owned by Funimation, Toei Animation, Shueisha, Dimps, and Akira Toriyama. I'm just a guy havin' fun. :p."
Chapter 23: The Mission
Almost a month had passed since the beginning of the war. I'd managed to hold off going on a mission until now; helping Takia in his department saved me some time. It was a month well spent, our combined intelligence coming out with some game-changing technology.
We would need it. The war started with a bang that shook the lives of everyone in the Universe. It was a wake-up call for many, who began to question if they wanted to live under the Saiyans rule. Slowly people were starting to convert, and whispers of the Liberation Army spread throughout many solar systems.
They were nothing to be messed with. The Liberation Army annihilated Leek's sector and didn't stop there. In their warpath, they'd converted many peoples, destroying the rest with relative ease. The Saiyans couldn't fight back properly due to the Death Star laser tech that would leave them stranded in space with no oxygen.
Okro had much of his non-Saiyan army go out and fight. The ones who could breathe in space that is, but they weren't able to do much at all. It was more of a diversion of attention, because Okro also ordered all Saiyans, not just soldiers, to train to their maximum. All school, work, and recreation were canceled for the time being. The only thing that mattered was strength.
This was what I had feared. The Saiyans had gotten lazy when they achieved Super Saiyan. Why train when you were the strongest species in the galaxy? Now they realized that they were no longer the top of the food chain, and they didn't like it at all.
I wouldn't complain if the Liberation Army killed the majority of the Saiyans. I didn't need them at all, and with their increasing power, they frankly were a threat. It wasn't just their power, but also the fact that they didn't like me. That was the deciding factor in this entire ordeal.
The Liberation Army didn't have any problems with me. They hated the Saiyans, but the other alien races, they were rather chill about. On the other hand, the Saiyans have a deep hatred for the Cold Family that reached back for god-knows how long. If it weren't for the fact that I had the King's favor, they'd have killed me already.
That was what I was riding on for now. I had Okro's favor, and I was still ahead of the Saiyans, or so I'd like to think. They'd stuck me with a team, so now I couldn't do what I wanted to do, but I'd use this war for what it was—a goldmine for experience points and quest farming.
I'd take my missions quietly because, at the moment, there was nothing else I could do. Cell could be anywhere in the entire Universe, so I wasn't going to go searching for him. I could have been a spy, planted deep in the Liberation Army, but the Queen thought it better if I were in a team with Broly.
The most that I could do is participate in the war and gain experience points and levels. There was no point in stopping the war for now, because to me, the dead Saiyans, the better.
Until now, I was waiting and working with Takia. We'd invented the technology needed for the Saiyans to breathe in space. It wasn't perfect, but it worked. If the user was hit hard enough, the device could shoot out of their mouths, leaving them defenseless and breathless. But it was the best we could do in the time that we had.
Takia and I had also been working on figuring out the infinity energy core in the androids. I took the android that I'd put in a portal out, having to kill his headless body before we could examine him. I still kept its head, which somehow could still talk, in one of my dimensions for later examination.
We'd figured out quite a bit about the device and were in the planning stages of using the same technology in other devices. I'd left the rest of the research to him, only taken some of it to implement into my ship.
I'd been given a ship personally by Okro, for me but also missions. While before it looked like a high-end ship, I'd transformed into something incredible. Its shield generator was powered by what was an incomplete copy of the infinity core. The weapons system was also powered by the core, although it wasn't nearly as strong as their planet-destroying laser.
The gravity chamber in my ship was enhanced, with me having added obstacle courses and random attacks from energy canons in the walls. I'd even managed to increase how much gravity it could magnify. It was similar to what they had in the Canon timeline. To my dismay, after Takia took one look at it, he ordered a mass-production of my upgraded version for the entire Empire.
After that, not wanting the Saiyans to get a hold of the rest of my wonderful ideas, I went off to work on some more personal projects. I reinvented my sword, using a much more durable metal that was more conducive to my ki. I had to use some mechanical engineering to give the sword some 'energy vents,' for when it had to let out excess energy without damaging itself.
After seeing the amount of damage produced by my spinning sword attack, I created something that could replicate it with little effort. They looked like small disks but were complicated pieces of technology. I only needed to put a small portion of my energy into each disc, and the machinery I'd placed inside of it would multiply my ki and expand it rapidly, forming a similar significant 'Destructo Disk' type attack. My sword also contained this technology, with quite impressive results. I'd made quite a few of the discs, placing them in my inventory with my sword.
None of those compared to my most prized ultimate invention. It was inspired by the Tree of Might, the monstrous villain Moro, and some freaky alien creatures from another anime I had watched in my previous life. At first glance, it didn't look like much, but it was incredible, and I wasn't planning on sharing it.
I didn't have a name for them yet. Each one looked like a tiny metallic seed with a very sharp tip. Their primary design focus was to absorb ki and store it for me to later inject into myself. I could fill them up with my ki so that I could always have backup stores of my maximum output. But the main point of the ability was for use against my opponents.
My wonderful invention had two settings. One such setting was sucking the ki out of the environment slowly, including everyone in the area. The other option was a more direct approach, stealing the energy from a specific individual. That was much faster than the first option, but I'd have to prick the individual. Thankfully, that wasn't a difficult thing with my portals.
It took all of my current intelligence to invent this. It couldn't turn others ki into my own yet, so, for now, it couldn't be a permanent boost to my ki like Moro's absorption. But it did give me a substantial temporary boost if used on already full reserves.
It wouldn't help me much against the androids, as they had infinite energy cores, and they functioned on energy that wasn't ki, but these weren't for the androids. Something else was in the works for them. No, these were for my new teammate.
I would have worked on more special contraptions to control Broly with, but there wasn't enough time. Even putting six attribute points into my luck stat, bringing it up to 15, didn't get him away.
We'd been assigned a mission, and we needed to leave today. I just needed to make one more stop before heading to the ship.
"Doctor Lychee?" I calmly called. I landed in front of a large laboratory out in the country. It took a few seconds for him to come to the front entrance, but when he did, a wore a broad smile.
This was much different than the hate-filled Doctor Lychee from the Hatchiyak movie. Instead, he was a much happier man, just glad that the war had ended. He'd gone on an extended vacation when everything settled down, only coming back to inventing a couple of years ago.
"Ah, Sub, my new favorite student," Lychee smiled at me warmly. "I heard that you were heading out on a mission. Was there anything that you needed?"
"No, sir, I was just coming by to see how the project was coming along," I told him, much to his delight. Hatchiyack was still in development, but I had a vested interest in its creation.
"It's going along very well. Not complete yet, of course, but with your input, it's coming along faster than anticipated," He chuckled heartily. I nodded my head and began to take a step in, only for him to put a hand on my leg.
"Not yet! I'm in the stage of testing the Destron Gas!" He tried to push me back, so I complied. A gas originally designed to weaken beings with ki. This newer version was going to be designed to decrease and slow down the 'mechanic energy' that the androids ran on.
"Good. I look forward to seeing what you've come up with before I come back," I backed away from him while smiling at him. "Hachiyack will change the tide of the war. You're truly the smartest person on this planet."
"Oh, hush. Don't let Takia hear you say that," He laughed in response.
"He should be proud of his father," I crossed my arms and looked down at him. "He is quickly catching up to your achievements. He's very impressive."
"I expect nothing less from my son," Lychee crossed his arms and grinned with pride, "Anyway, I have some news for you. Concerning the 'bug' problem."
"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow, extremely curious now. By bug, he wasn't referring to any insect.
After carefully trying to figure out how the Queen had found out about my activities in the HBTC, I only could come up with one explanation. I'd been bugged somehow. There was no other way. Bleuras had confirmed to me that he hadn't told them anything either.
After carefully searching, I found a tiny device hidden on the surface of my bio-armor. It stuck to my body with a vice-like grip, only dislodging once I'd concentrated a considerable volume of ki on the spot that it latched onto. Once it was off, I examined it and figured out that it only recorded sound, not videos.
Whoever had placed it on me was suspicious of me for some reason. My first and final guess was the royals. How else would the Queen have known anything? But that wasn't like Okro at all. I couldn't imagine him spying on me, let alone in such a technological way. When he had a problem with me in the past, he confronted me in person.
So, in the end, I figured that it was probably just the Queen. Why she was so suspicious of me, I had no idea. To be fair, I wasn't even sure if she had been the one to plant it, but I knew that if she didn't do it herself, she knew who did and was in leagues with them. Whomever it was, I couldn't confront them about it without proof.
She slipped the remark about the fight in so smoothly that I answered it without thinking. But she couldn't have revealed her knowledge about the HBTC without announcing that she knew that there was a bug on me. She is sneaky.
"Unfortunately, I couldn't trace back it's origins completely," Lychee sighed, clearly disappointed. "But I'm sure it's very high-end material. Extremely expensive."
"Thank you for trying," I replied as I slowly began to lift off of the ground. "See you when I get back."
"Until next time, student."
My next stop was at Rot's house, where Bleuras was waiting for me outside. He'd been staying with me ever since I'd saved him using a long-distance portal back on the planet. He'd come to Rot's house for the day to spend time with his siblings, who Rot willingly took in. Bleuras had a scowl on his face, which lightened when I got closer.
"Hey, kid. Ready for the mission?" I asked him, not even bothering to land. He followed me into the air, and we were off.
"What's got you so grumpy?" I asked, genuinely concerned. In his species biology, he was 12 years old, so I chalked it up to puberty. But it never hurt to find out, especially when we were about to go on a dangerous mission where he'd need to control his emotions.
"They think you're untrustworthy," He growled in annoyance. The news was a great surprise to me. I thought that the rest of Leek's kids liked me, considering that I'd saved their lives.
"Why's that?" I asked him in response.
"They're idiots! They said that they saw you talking with the androids, as if you were friends with them," He didn't believe them, and that made me feel much better, "They even think that you're the one that put Dad in his coma!"
"Ridiculous. As if I could defeat your Dad in that new form of his," I scoffed back. "Just ignore them. When your Dad wakes up, he'll explain to them that I helped him take out the rest of the army. If I wanted to kill your Dad, I would have thrown him into a star when he was unconscious; not bring him back to the planet to heal."
"Exactly!" He seemed to calm down for a minute, before growling again. "It's Dragula! She's instigating it all. The others all listen to her because she helped them escape the planet exploding!"
"But you're the heir? How disrespectful," I was a bit of an instigator, but it was fun to watch.
"Exactly! When I come back from this mission, I'm going to…" He kept on throwing threats at the air for the remainder of the journey to the ship. Just before we got there, I silenced him with a gentle tap of my tail.
"I'm going to need you to hold your tongue when speaking with Broly, understood?" I reminded him, probably for the hundredth time. "Forget your pride when he's around. It's not worth it."
"I know, I know! You've told me so many times! I haven't even met the guy yet!" He grumbled in response. It was true, but there was no being too careful. I'd skin Broly alive if he did anything to Bleuras.
He was, by far, my favorite nephew. Considering that the majority of them were corpses floating off in space, it wasn't much of an accomplishment. But still, it counted. He meant a lot to me and was the only Saiyan that I could guarantee was more loyal to me than to the King.
"Alright, so don't complain if you mouth off and he beats your ass," I replied casually. We landed at the shipyard right in front of my ship. It didn't take me long to find who else they'd assigned for this mission.
"Kakarot…" I hummed in interest. The Saiyan boy lay comfortably on the outer layer of the ship, staring off into the sky. He was a little taller then he'd been in Dragon Ball, but was still relatively short. He turned to look down at us when I called out his name.
"Are you two ready for the mission? If so, I think Broly is waiting inside," Kakarot informed me, before jumping off of the ship and heading straight inside. He wasn't particularly friendly, but that wasn't what I had been expecting. He would either take after the Bardock from Minus or the Bardock from the Super Broly movie. Slightly different, but it would make the difference between a somewhat friendly guy, or a broody one.
"My name is Bleuras. I am the son of Leek, the Albino Fang," Bleuras introduced himself to Kakarot as we walked.
"I am Kakarot, third son of Bardock, the third commander of the highest-ranking squad in the Saiyan army," Kakarot responded quickly, although his expression was still blank. "Your Dad was on my squad before we split; it's a shame what happened to him."
"Hm," Bleuras replied as he looked away, "If your Dad is third in command, he must be plenty strong,"
"Yeah, he is," Kakarot tilted his head towards Bleuras, the first sliver of a smirk appearing on his face. "But I'm stronger."
"If you're stronger, shouldn't you be third in charge?" Bleuras asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes, but because he's older and has more experience, they won't promote me," Kakarot spat out, a scowl forming on his face. "It's unfair."
"I agree," Bleuras seemed to stop and think for a second before a large smirk appeared on his face, "If you're so strong, then show me."
"Oh?" Kakarot's scowl quickly turned into a smirk, "Is that a challenge?"
"Yup!" Bleuras crossed two of his arms, confidence oozing from his stance. "No problem. It'll be easy."
"I'm ready to go right now, if you want," Kakarot's excited grin only made Bleuras more determined. Bleuras looked back at me as if to confirm that they had permission.
"Take it to the training room. I'll go ahead and brief Broly first," I waved them off before they both went running off down the hallway, Bleuras leading them.
That looks promising. I watched as they disappeared around a corner. Bleuras is making friends, and Kakarot isn't a jerk. Perfect.
I continued down a separate path, going towards where I knew that Broly would be waiting. I could feel like his aura as soon as I'd stepped into the ship due to his lack of desire to suppress it.
"You must be Broly," I was in my third form, so when he turned to look at me, I hoped he'd feel a little intimidated. Instead, the thirteen-year-old just smirked smugly, before leaning back in his chair and yawning.
"And you are Sub. I've heard a lot about you," Broly replied, much more civil then I would have thought. "My Dad speaks highly of you. But it disgraces me that they thought I'd need a babysitter, let alone one from a race inferior to the Saiyans."
Alien racism? I didn't give him much of a response, knowing that it would probably fuel him. His Saiyan pride is always on overdrive; I almost forgot.
"I'm not a babysitter. I'm merely here to complete the mission and bring us back home safely if the mission goes south," I informed him, but he still snarled at me.
"In that case, stay out of my way. I don't need any help," Broly growled at me before standing up and making for the door. I narrowed my eyes at his defiance but knew better than to provoke him. As much as I wanted to put him in his place, he could quickly transform into his legendary state. If we were in space, that would be a different story, as he couldn't change because it would destroy the ship and leave us stranded.
I was left alone in the room with my thoughts. This was going to be harder than I anticipated.
If you have any questions hit me up in the reviews! The next chapter is already written and completed, but I won't be posting it for a few days. Or should I release it now? :p If I get enough of you that want it now, I'll release it sooner!
I hope you enjoyed!
