A/N: Gine is my power fantasy.

Gine stared up at the sky with the rest of her family, horror warring with shock. Why were the Ginyus here? Did they know about her? Had they come to finish the job Frieza started?

Behind her Vegeta was cackling.

"You pathetic low class scum! You really thought you could win, didn't you? You're in for it now. I only wonder why it took them so long to show up."

Gine turned slowly around, pushing Gohan gently but firmly away from her. She fixed the Prince with an incredulous glare.

"Are you implying," she said evenly, "that the Ginyus are here for you?"

It was possible, just possible, that things had changed in the twenty-odd years she'd been away from the Frieza Force, but the flash of hesitation on Vegeta's face told her they hadn't.

"You cowardly liar," she said, almost wonderingly. Vegeta flushed.

This spineless nothing was the heir to the nightmare of her childhood? This was what she'd spent an entire year dreading? This was why Tien and Chiaotzu and Kami were dead? She was no longer afraid of him, hadn't been for a while, but now she was just… disappointed.

She also realized something.

"They are here for you, aren't they? They don't even know about us, how could they? They're here to bring you back, or kill you, and you're sitting there lying about it to save your own skin for an extra five minutes. How shameful."

Vegeta leaped to his feet, snarling, but the sight no longer held any terror for her. He was weaker than her, in every sense of the word. In the space where her dread of him had been, a new emotion began to seep, something black and heady.

"I can't believe you can stand there and call yourself a Saiyan when you can't even face your own death without mewling like a babe. What were you going to do when they landed, try and bluff your way out of that too? What would your father think?"

He struck her.

Well, he tried to. His face contorted in slow motion, his shoulder tensing as he lifted his arm to bring it down on her cheek. Easily, like snatching a floating handkerchief out of the air, Gine reached up and caught it. His hand cracked as it impacted. Her sunglasses slipped down, and she fixed him with a stare she'd given Kakarot more than once throughout his childhood, though he had never deserved it as much as the Prince did now.

It had never affected Kakarot as much as it did the Prince either. He stared back at her, eyes wide, quailing in her grip. It fed something inside her, that look. No one had ever looked at her that way before, like they needed to keep their eyes on her in case she did something, like she was a predator and they were the prey.

Like she was dangerous.

"You talk like you're hot stuff but every single one of those buffoons could kill you without a thought. I could kill you without a thought. I used to think you were special, Vegeta. You. Your power level at birth was higher than mine as an adult. And yet here we are." She squeezed his hand and ground the bones together so hard they splintered. He gave a strangled cry, staring at her in abject horror. "Call me a worthless low class again. Say it like you mean it, you filthy liar! Could a low class do this?"

And she headbutted him. Like a mother does her child when she is at her last nerve, when they will not be reasonable and respond to lesser forms of violence. Vegeta fell backwards, landing directly on his stump. He screamed, high-pitched and involuntary. His eyes were still on her, though they were watering with pain. He could not seem to look away, and neither could Gine.

"Ma!"

It was Chi Chi. Without turning her head away from Vegeta Gine looked at her daughter-in-law out of the corner of her eye. The girl looked fierce, but also appalled. She was trying to turn Gohan's head away, though he was fighting her. If Gine had been standing on green grass under a blue sky she would have been just as appalled. This level of violence had no place in the life she was trying to build for herself deep in the woods of Mt. Paozu.

But she wasn't on Mt. Paozu. She was on her old stomping grounds now, and this was how things worked out here. It was only the wide eyes of her grandson watching her that made her step back and take a deep, settling breath.

"Gohan, get your mother and the others to safety. It's better if the Ginyus don't know you're here."

She thought they would make objections. Offer to stay and help out. But Chi Chi, Yamcha and Krillin all looked worse for wear, and they were staring at her like they didn't recognize her. Gohan nodded, and turned to the others.

"Let's go. Bulma is probably getting worried by now."

"R-right," Yamcha agreed belatedly. The four of them flew away. Gine turned back to Vegeta, who was still watching her warily.

"What does the Ginyu Force want with you, Vegeta?"

"To kill me, probably," Vegeta sneered. "I got tired of being Frieza's lackey and he must have sent them after me."

That made it sound like his being on Namek had nothing to do with the Earthlings, which Gine found hard to believe. She narrowed her eyes. "Why are you here?"

"The same reason you're here, I imagine," he said airily. Gine felt an unpleasant jolt as she realized she didn't even know if the original mission had succeeded. She hadn't seen a single Namekian on her way here. What if this had all been for nothing?

Her dark musings were interrupted by five pods streaking through the sky to land not ten yards from where they stood.

From each pod emerged a figure, some small, some large. They floated up from their respective craters and landed in front of the three Saiyans. The five figures loomed, menacing, energy boiling off them like steam. Then, one by one, they thrust their bodies into bizarre poses, forming a tableau as they sounded off.

"Recoome!"

"Burter!"

"Jeice!"

"Guldo!"

"Ginyu!"

Jeice broke pose for a moment to press a button on his boom box, and tinny music started to play as they flung themselves into final position.

"Together we make— the Ginyu Force!"