NOTE: Hello everyone from your favorite sandwich maker! The following chapter contains some formatting that this archaic site apparently supports while uploading but immediately removes upon submitting. I worked with what I had and believe it's all good and readable, but if you're interested, then why don't you mosey on over to AO3, which hopefully will support all my formatting decisions. You can find the link in my profile. Happy eating!

UNFAIR ADVANTAGE

"Where the hell is that woman?"

It's dinnertime, and while Krillin had managed to drag himself out of his new room in order to make sandwiches as agreed, he hadn't been prepared for Vegeta's gusto.

To be fair, Vegeta hadn't been prepared for his own gusto either. After having departed the kitchen this morning on a somewhat confusing but overall positive note, he had decided to go and have a good long yell at the woman so she would fix his gravity machine – except, she was nowhere to be found. He searched the lab, the other lab, the kitchen, the actual kitchen, the gardens, her bedroom (where he had been explicitly told to never barge into again after catching her shaving her legs, but he doesn't give a fuck), and basically everywhere Vegeta knows on God's green earth, but he couldn't find her to save his life. Instead, he just kept running into houseplants and that damn poodle.

That's when he had a thought – a dangerous prospect often tied to Vegeta's sudden flairs of gusto. What if all humans can sense energy? It would certainly explain why he can never find a fucking soul – he's way too powerful and easy to detect while they're all too puny and impossible to find! (It explains the cook, at least). So Vegeta rushed in here to find his resident human. Surely he can sense her, right?

He can. Krillin's able to track her down before Vegeta's even able to catch his breath. She's currently out having a smoke in the place she thinks is secret when really it's just that no one's barged in on her there yet. (Give it a bit). Still though, Krillin's not sure he should be giving this information away freely, especially to Vegeta, who really shouldn't have to ask.

"Um, can't you sense her?"

Vegeta looks like he's been slapped in the face with a fish, perhaps repeatedly. Nothing's ever easy with Krillin, he's learned the past few weeks, but that's because Krillin is both insanely honest and a lying piece of shit. Vegeta recognizes that reply as the former of the two. His theory about all humans being able to sense energy is thrown out the window immediately, but you know Vegeta. He'll argue until his dying breath even though it's obvious he's been caught.

"O-Of course I can!" (He obviously can't). "There's just too many of you weaklings around muddling it all up! You're friendly with her," he says like it's vaguely gross. "Where is she usually?"

… did Vegeta somehow manage to give himself a concession in the past three to four hours? No, that's almost impossible given that Vegeta hasn't trained since his mishap with the gravity machine earlier today. At first, this had excited Krillin greatly, seeing as it had given him the opportunity to have a proper think rather than consciously try to ignore Vegeta's questionable energy shifts for what seems like the first time in weeks. Krillin's not sure what line Bulma fed him, but Vegeta seems convinced that no one can sense him while he's in there. That's not entirely the case. The room definitely dampens his energy, which would probably interfere with your ability to sense it from afar, but seeing as Krillin's only the next building over, well…

He's tried not to pay attention to it, really (thus the conscious ignoring). It's just, well… vegeta kinda has no idea what he's doing, a thought Krillin's been trying his best to avoid thinking seeing that Vegeta can kick his ass regardless. Except, it turns out this constant ignoring and avoiding were exactly what Krillin's needed to keep his mind occupied since this whole water main debacle started, and in their absence, his mind has come up with a lot worse things to think about instead.

And so, he really wants to tell Vegeta where Bulma is so Vegeta can get back to whatever the hell he's trying to accomplish in that training room and Krillin can get back to actively ignoring it. However, he quickly settles on the choice that least benefits him because of course he does. Still though, Vegeta's having a hard time sensing Bulma? Krillin's about to snort when he remembers that Vegeta actually hasn't been able to sense energy for all that long.

"Huh," he says instead.

That's not the answer Vegeta was expecting, but it's definitely more on Krillin's 'lying piece of shit' side. He's about to say as much when Krillin brings over the sandwiches. After a moment of consideration, he decides to sit and chow down instead.

Krillin takes a seat too. "So you couldn't sense ki when you first landed on Earth, right? But then you could when you landed on Namek."

Vegeta's not ashamed to admit he couldn't do something before if he's able to do it now. He nods.

"... how?"

Well, one day Vegeta went into a healing tank half-mangled to death and came out some days later feeling… different. He's still not quite sure what happened (at first, he was convinced the doctors or Cui did something to him in his sleep), but for now he chalks it up to being, well, half-mangled to death. After all, if Saiyans can become exponentially stronger by surviving a near-death experience, why can't they learn to sense energy during the process?

At least Earth had done one – well, two good things for him if you include the power boost that let him wipe the floor with Cui and Dodoria as a separate line item; but while the power boost was straight-forward, the ability to sense energy was not. Sure, Vegeta can now gauge the strength of his enemies without being hyper-independent on a glorified monocle, but now he's hyper-aware that things are, you know, alive. It's not like Vegeta was somehow blind to this before – no scouter could have distanced him from the carnage he mostly gladly wrought – but it did take something, frankly, more important to him and made it a lot mudder: power levels. Yes, power levels are technically more important to Vegeta than the ability to live or breath. This should come as no surprise, but oddly for Vegeta, it did.

"Well, I'm not going to sit here and say that makes sense," Krillin replies after sitting through a version of that explanation that was a lot shorter but somehow less succinct, "but it tracks? I mean, you did ask me to put a hole through your stomach on Namek in order to make you stronger. I'm glad you had some evidence to back that up."

"Of course I had evidence," Vegeta shoots back. (Actually, he had forgotten all about that incident and would like to continue doing so). "Power levels are a cornerstone of the Empire."

"Oh right, you all had those scouter things. Bulma repaired Raditz's actually, so–" 'we played around with it for a bit of a laugh' is probably not the right response, so instead he says, "– we tested it out a bit. It was weird to see it, you know, quantified like that."

"What?"

"Ki. I mean, before Raditz came along, we never really thought it was an exact science. People just kinda had more or less of it, and you acted accordingly."

That's… an incredibly foreign concept to Vegeta. In the Empire, every member of a so-called 'warrior race' has their power level measured the moment they're born, and that initial reading can determine a person's whole lot in life. For most, that future isn't bright, but for Vegeta, that number may have very well saved his life. It was what first caught Frieza's attention and, while Frieza's never been above taking living trophies of his conquests, it's likely one of the main reasons he ultimately decided to keep Vegeta around. Vegeta owes nearly everything to it, which has been kind of hard to reconcile because, if Earth and Namek have taught him anything, it's that measuring power levels is kinda bullshit.

Sensing them, however, isn't much better. In fact, it makes you look like a bloody idiot, like when you're not able to find the woman or the cook, or when you think you're as strong as Frieza and boast as such but then he transforms. Three fucking times. Levels and scouters are a lot less personal – or at least, their fixed concepts you can easily blame when they error. Your own gut? Not so much. Vegeta immensely prefers the former.

Of course, he covers this up immediately. "This is why your species or your planet or whatever is so pathetic," he says. "You don't discern between the weak and the strong whatsoever."

"Oh believe me," Krillin replies, "we do plenty of that. Just, you know, not by measuring your ki. Now thinking about it though, I suppose power levels are kinda similar to IQ levels. They're used here on Earth to measure someone's intelligence."

"Why the hell would you want to measure that?"

Krillin gestures around in a way that suggests 'exactly.'

Meanwhile, Vegeta's having a thought again. If humans can sense energy (which they can, they all can because Krillin can and Vegeta's not going to let that go no matter how much he really should) and there's a measurement for that, then –

"No, Vegeta. Humans can't sense someone else's intelligence. Well, not in the way you're thinking, anyway."

"Then you have scouters."

"No, you take a test. It's supposed to be standardized, I think, but there's a million free ones online, so take that as you will."

"... what's Kakatrot's level? -5?"

The question throws Krillin off-guard, mostly because there's a small part of him that snorts and says yeah. "No," he says instead. "It has nothing to do with what you know. It measures your ability to, like, identify patterns and stuff."

Vegeta looks expectantly.

"I do not know what Goku's IQ level is, Vegeta."

Drats.

Krillin moves on. "How much ki is there per power level anyway? It's a fixed scale, right?"

Vegeta may be a connoisseur of his own energy level, but he ain't a fucking scholar. "How should I know?'

Krillin shrugs. "I dunno. Like I said, it's just weird is all. I mean, you can't just look at someone's power level and know whether or not you'll win, right?"

Actually, apparently you can. After several less-than-ethical clinical trials, Empirical scientists learned that you're almost guaranteed to beat the ever-living shit out of your opponent if your energy level is at least 36% higher than theirs. Combine that with the even-less-ethical benchmarking of every species the Empire has ever encountered, and you've got your standard range for every soldier, officer, captain, and so on – and to exactly which planets they should be assigned. That's why when they first came to Earth, Nappa and Vegeta, who never would've been sent to such a shithole on official business, were laughing so hard. You know, until they weren't.

Krillin pulls a page from Bulma's book. "Are you sure that's 'representative data'? They only tested soldiers, right?"

"Of course."

"Then I don't think that's entirely accurate. I mean, if they're all soldiers, that means they received training, right?"

"They all trained, yes."

"So they understood how to use their ki."

Some more than others, sure. Vegeta's not sure where Krillin's going with this, but he doesn't mind. For the first time ever in their conversations, Vegeta's found himself in familiar territory. He actually knows this stuff, and it's not even making him have to gobble up sandwiches to admit that he does.

"But I fought Frieza," Krillin says, "and didn't, you know, kick the bucket immediately."

"I was there, and you got lucky."

"No, a lot of people were there and I had to shoot you in the stomach."

Vegeta really wishes he'd stop bringing that up.

From the look on Vegeta's face, Krillin's aware he's gone too far. He dials it back a bit. "Okay, maybe that was a bad example." He tries to think of another one. "Okay," he says once he does, "let's take me and Goku's son. I'm sure his power level is much, much higher than mine, but I'm pretty confident I could still beat him in a fight."

Vegeta nearly spits out his sandwich. "You think you could take on Goku's brat?"

"One, his name is Gohan and two, I mean… yeah?"

Looks, Krillin may have all the self-confidence of a lima bean, but he has a lot of confidence in others. Roshi's initial training may have been somewhat unorthodox, but his later training was not. Combine that with the surprisingly decent foundations Krillin learned at Orin Temple and the subsequent lessons he's received from the likes of Kami since, and Krillin's pretty sure he can outmaneuver a seven-year-old boy who's received almost exactly zero actual instruction. (Hell, Krillin basically had to give him a crash course on the way to Namek). The techniques that have been passed down to Krillin over the years have kept him… er, mostly alive, and he's willing to put his faith in them. You know, in this very theoretical situation. If he had to actually fight Gohan, he doesn't think he'd have the heart. Forcing himself to fight Goku's body was hard enough.

Vegeta though isn't following whatsoever. "But his power level is higher than yours," he says.

"Well, yeah," Krillin replies.

"Much higher."

"Yeah, that's what I said."

"So he would beat you."

"... not necessarily." Krillin tries to suss out where Vegeta's confusion may be coming from. Maybe he just doesn't have the necessary background information? He goes with that. "Before Raditz came to Earth, Gohan didn't receive any training whatsoever. He's strong and learns quickly, but at the end of the day, he hasn't done much more than master the basic techniques."

"He's a Saiyan! A natural-born warrior! We don't need to waste our time learning cheap techniques. We know how to fight the moment we're conceived!"

"Then why do you–" Krillin's had his mind blown quite often by Vegeta's strange logic since coming here, but this… this takes the cake. "When you're in there training," he says, pointing in the general direction of the chamber, "is your only goal to… increase your power level?"

Duh! Why would Vegeta be trying to do anything else? The higher your power level, the stronger you are. The stronger you are, the more likely you are to win. It's not rocket science! (Unlike Super Saiyan, which isn't rocket science either but apparently requires having a heart; but surely if you train harder enough to raise your power level to match that of a Super Saiyan's, you might as well be one too, right? That's Vegeta's new strategy, and he's sticking to it).

Meanwhile, Krillin leans back and thinks, That explains so much. Stop it, he tells himself. Be nice. "... don't you think it'd be good to work on your technique too?" Goddammit, Krillin.

"I've been blowing up planets since before you could even walk." Okay, not entirely accurate, but surely Krillin gets the point.

He does, but not in the way Vegeta's expecting. "Yeah, blowing up planets… blowing up weaker populations on said planets..." How many people has Vegeta ever actually fought? Is he only this strong because he keeps getting the shit kicked outta him? Shut up, Krillin! You're not helping, Krillin!

Vegeta looks very confident, so Krillin just says, "Okay then."

Vegeta seems satisfied with that. Krillin, meanwhile, looks like he's about to have an aneurism. Vegeta interprets that to mean that Krillin's, um, feeling bad about himself? (He's not entirely wrong). "Frieza and his lot are almost the only ones stronger than Saiyans in the entire universe," Vegeta says, having absolutely no idea what he's talking about.

"Uh huh," Krillin replies dryly.

"And it's not your fault your species is so weak. I mean, that's why you all rely on gravity."

Krillin didn't think it was possible for Vegeta to say anything more ridiculous during the course of this conversation, but here we are. "Wait, what?"

"Gravity. That's why you and Kakarot and the others use increased gravity to raise your power levels."

"Uh, no… only Goku has, and even then, he's only really used it twice."

"Twice?"

"Yeah, once on King Kai's planet and then in the ship on his way to Namek. It's not a core part of his routine or anything."

"... so he's not using it now?"

"... I don't believe so, no."

Then what in the world is Vegeta doing? All this time, he thought he was using Earth's cheap tricks against Kakarot in some sort of ironic twist – another knife to dig into his back as Vegeta exacts his revenge. Instead, he's just being cheap! Damn that woman, making him rely on something other than his own two Saiyan hands! He was probably blowing up planets before she was walking too! He'll show her! He'll show them all!

"I'm going to train!" Vegeta yells as he leaves the kitchen with just as much gusto as he entered it.

Personally, Krillin's never been more relieved in his life.

SPONSOR: This chapter is brought to you by disappointment. Disappointment: My fiance's face when I told him that this fic is, in fact, not about Krillin and Vegeta owning a Subway franchise. I kinda wish it was.

(Also, please follow medical experts' advice and also consider donating to the BLM movement. A lot has happened since the resurrection of this fic back in January 2020. Though it is not much, I hope these sandwiches someday find us all during better times. Only we ourselves can get us there).