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Chapter 20: The Scavengers

Thursday 10th June Age 796

Along on their journey Vegeta spotted a planet on the radar that appeared to be very volcanic and decided that it was a good location for some intense training. They landed down on the planet and saw that the whole planet was extremely volcanic. Think Mustafar in Star Wars, but with less rivers of lava and rockier terrain.

Noca was standing in the centre of an open plain, and in the distance some volcanoes were erupting. The Saiyan teen had his eyes closed and he was preparing for an attack, but he first had to keep his focus and his mind clear. His senses had to be on full alert, Vegeta could attack at any time. That time was now, as Vegeta dropped in with an attempt to attack Noca.

The teen opened his eyes and jumped back, flipping in the air and avoiding Vegeta's attack. The Prince struck the ground. Noca landed back on his feet, just fine, but Vegeta was back on the attack. Noca jumped to the right, dodging the Prince. Vegeta turned and attempted to strike Noca with a right hook. Noca bent back, letting the arm fly over him. Noca took a chance to attempt an attack and kicked up, striking Vegeta's arm and knocking the Prince back. Noca flipped away again in the process, but his sparring partner was already attempting to make another attack.

Vegeta charged in at full speed and Noca had to block it. He put as much power as needed into his block and pushed Vegeta back, opening him up for an attacking opportunity. Noca punched Vegeta in the chest and attempted to follow that up with another punch from the same fist. Vegeta caught that one with complete ease. The Prince then lifted his leg, crashing his knee into Noca's gut. The teen stumbled back away and Vegeta followed on.

He sent a right jab into Noca's face and then followed that up by swiping his right elbow across Noca's face, knocking the teen to the ground. Noca fell on his front and Vegeta made a move to punch down on Noca's back, but the teen quickly kicked back, knocking Vegeta's leg out from underneath him. As Vegeta fell Noca swiftly turned to be on his back and sent a Ki blast up at Vegeta, sending him into the sky.

Noca returned to his feet and leapt up to meet the Prince in the sky. Both of them levelled out facing one another. They each took a second to analyse one another, but they were too focused on each other to realise what was going on below them. The ground had been affected by their fighting and was starting to open up a little bit, causing molten rock to rise to the surface and explode, blasting up into the air. There were bits of rock coming for both Noca and Vegeta, so the two Saiyans were forced to make great efforts to avoid any hot rocks, or bits of lava.

Vegeta wanted to use this scenario to his own advantage and shot towards Noca, whom was completely unaware of Vegeta's intentions. The Saiyan Prince punched the teen in the face with his right and Noca was knocked down towards the ground. The teen managed to power-up and stop himself from hitting the ground just in time to back off from Vegeta's incoming attack. The Prince crashed a fist down into the ground in front of Noca. The punch caused the ground to crack open a little and more magma rose to the surface.

Noca made sure to back off far enough to get a good distance away from Vegeta. He needed time to plot his next attack. Vegeta came in at Noca and attempted an uppercut, but Noca blocked it and flipped forwards over the Prince. As Noca came around to the other side of the Prince he was able to kick Vegeta in the back and knock the Prince forward. Vegeta quickly spun around, ready to attack, but Noca was already charging in. He kicked Vegeta in the head, hard, and the Prince flew into a large rock. Noca jumped up and soared down towards him, but Vegeta had to do something quick to slow down the teen. He lifted a hand and fired an energy beam into Noca. The beam caught the teen by surprise and Noca was knocked away.

Vegeta jumped up and flew up and over Noca. He then performed a forward overhead-kick to knock Noca back down towards the ground. The teen had to use a power burst to slow himself and avoid hitting the ground again, but as soon as he looked up Vegeta was dropping in again. Noca backed away and Vegeta altered his direction to follow after the teen. Vegeta attempted to crash into Noca, but the teen blocked the attack with his right arm and then fired a blast with his left. The blast was aimed for Vegeta's gut, but the Prince managed to kick Noca's arm away. The blast sailed off into the distance and crashed into a rock formation, destroying it.

Both backed off from one another, but Vegeta moved in quick enough to get an attack off. He punched Noca in the chest, causing him to back off and then Vegeta jumped after him. He attempted to punch down, but Noca blocked it and Vegeta dropped away. His feet barely touched the ground before he was already shooting in towards Noca again. He kicked Noca in the gut and followed it up by elbowing the teen in the side of the head.

The teen stumbled and managed to get himself back up, but by the time he did Vegeta had phased. He came it at Noca's right and kicked him away to the side and phased once more. He appeared in front of Noca and kicked up into his face, then phased again. He came in on Noca's right again and kicked him towards some rocks.

Noca smashed into those rocks and bounced straight back off of them, landing hard on the ground. He slowly pushed up and made it to his feet as Vegeta rushed in and managed to get up a strong enough block to push the Prince back. Noca then thrust an energy blast forward, smashing it into Vegeta's chest and sending him flying off into the distance. Noca took a second to compose himself and crack his neck, but then followed on after the Prince.

Their spar was going to continue, but first we have something else to check out for a second. Another ship had entered into the atmosphere of this unknown planet and flew towards a rather large plateau before slowly touching down, and landing on top of it. The ship was pretty large, about six times the size of the Capsule Corp. ship.

Once the ship had landed an entry ramp opened up and then four different looking beings walked out. They were clearly aliens, but none of them were the same race. The one at the front of the group was rather large and fat, and looked to be the same species as Dodoria of the Freeza army. The one behind him was taller and a lot slimmer. He had red skin, a bald head and his facial features were very snake like. Even his skin appeared to be scaled. The third of the group was also tall, but a lot more buff than the alien in front of him. He had grey skin, short black hair that was shaved at the sides and a goatee style beard and moustache. His most differentiating features were his four arms and one eye.

The last of the group was the one that looked to be in the most powerful position. He wasn't as tall as his soldiers, but he was certainly average height for an adult human male. He wasn't human though. He had light purple skin, and a Mohawk that was a very dark purple. He wore an armour that didn't have anything covering his arms, so you could just see his muscles. They were all wearing outfits that they appeared to have fashioned themselves. There were even parts of old Cold Empire armours in there.

The four aliens walked out onto the plateau and looked around. The leader stayed on the end of the landing ramp. The other three turned to each other and started talking amongst themselves.

"So… what are we here for," The one that was from the same species as Dodoria asked the others. The grey-skinned buff one whacked him on the head. "Ow! What was that for, Tufa?"

"Shirken told us to look for a specific type of rock that can only be found in volcanic areas, like this planet," Tufa explained, showing that he wasn't just a muscle headed imbecile. "Is that too much for your tiny mind, Shibo?"

Shibo tried to hit Tufa, but something held his arm back. It was the snake like one, using his tail which had been previously hidden.

"Don't get into a fight in front of Shirken, boys," He told the two of them while nodding his head towards the leader, who we can now assume was called Shirken.

"Nobody put you in charge, Kuiku," Tufa said, scoffing slightly as he walked to the edge of the plateau and looked down. Kuiku took his tail off of Shibo's arm and hissed to himself.

"Quiet, all of you," Shirken said in his deep, commanding voice. "There should be an abundance of those rocks out there, so I want you to find a lot of them, quickly."

The three of them looked at each other again and then back to Shirken. He cracked his neck and glared at them.

"Did I stutter? I said QUICKLY!" As soon as Shirken yelled at them they all blasted off in opposite direction to look for them. Shirken remained on the rock and looked around the area, until something caught his eye. Off to the right from this plateau there was another open space, and sitting in the middle of it was a small spaceship that appeared to be cargo sized. Shirken looked around again and wondered if there were more things out here trying to collect those rocks.

He was about to move towards the ship, but then his hearing picked up on something. Shirken had super strong hearing and he managed to narrow it and block out any unwanted sounds. He picked up on the sounds of fighting. Combat. Taking place quite far away. Shirken lifted his wrist towards his mouth and pressed a button, opening communications with his men.

"New mission, I want you guys to head about 20 miles east from my location. Find out what's going on over there," Shirken ordered before disconnecting the communication and heading off to see what was up with that ship.

Meanwhile, Noca and Vegeta continued to go head to head in their sparring match, ignorant to the fact that those aliens were headed their way. The two Saiyans were locked in a barrage of punches and kicks and were exerting a lot of energy. Still powered up as Super Saiyan 2, the fighters were completely focused on their own energies and each other's movements. A clash in the attack occurred and Noca was knocked back. He took this to his advantage and phased away, hoping to confuse Vegeta with his next move. The teen moved further away from Vegeta and watch the Prince look over the area.

Vegeta was so engrossed in looking for Noca that he really didn't notice what was coming for him in that moment. In fact, Vegeta felt something coming from his left. He turned to look, but as he did he could feel the presence of more energy levels, but he had no time react as he was struck on the head and sent flying into a rock formation. He hit the rocks hard and fell down to the ground. The ground had started to crack and more lava had risen to the surface, slightly catching Vegeta's skin.

Vegeta leapt up to his feet and was about to call out to his attackers, but that chance was gone as the rocks behind him suddenly exploded, throwing lots of lava and rock over the place. Vegeta had to try and power his aura at the last minute, but it didn't do him any good. Noca was still biding his time, but upon realising something was going on, and Vegeta was involved, he knew he had to get back in there.

Noca blasted back in and saw three alien warriors floating there, looking towards the lava and rock.

"Well, I guess he's dead," Shibo said, dusting his hands as if he had actually done something. Kuiku looked down at him.

"Don't be so sure, we don't know how strong he is," The snake-like alien replied, crossing his arms. Tufa turned to try and interject, but Noca shot in and kicked him in the back. He bounced off and smashed a fist into Shibo's face and then swiped his leg around, trying to catch Kuiku. Unfortunately, it was Kuiku that caught him. The alien's tail wrapped around Noca's leg and launched him down towards the ground.

Noca powered his energy out and looked up as Tufa dropped in with an elbow aimed first. The teen was hit on the head and backed away, but suddenly Shibo shot at him, head-butting him into some rocks. Kuiku dropped down in front of him and blasted the teen with a huge energy blast. The blast exploded and Noca used it as a chance to shoot off up in the air. That's when all three of them appeared in front of him, very quickly.

Shibo threw an energy blast into Noca's face, giving Tufa a chance to shoot in. The buff alien smashed both of his right fists into Noca's gut and then dropped an elbow on Noca's head, knocking him back down to the ground. Kuiku rounded off the attack by shooting in, wrapping his tail around Noca's neck and launching him across the area, towards a rather large trench. Noca smashed into some rocks and started falling down inside the trench. There was a lot of lava flow down in the trench, so the aliens assumed the Saiyan had been killed.

The aliens weren't finished yet. Vegeta fired out of the rocks and yelled out, becoming a Full Powered Super Saiyan 2. He exerted so much power and there were a lot of sparks around his body. The aliens turned to see Vegeta charging towards them. As far as the Prince knew, Noca had just been severely injured, or far worse. The alien scavengers could tell that Vegeta was going to be too much for them and they started to back down. They began to head back to their ship.

"Get back here, you cowards!" Vegeta screamed as he chased after them, completely forgetting about Noca.

Back at the ship, the leader of the Scavengers (Shirken) had just finished loading the Capsule Corp. ship into the cargo hold of his own ship. Luckily their ship was a lot bigger than the Capsule-Ship. Vegeta was approaching the location and could see the large transport. He started to wonder how many more fighters or scavengers there might be.

The trio stopped in front of their leader as he started to load some sort of wrist weapon.

"These guys are pretty strong, boss," Kuiku said, sounding a little worried. Shirken looked up at his ally and shook his head.

"You three are so pathetic, just go up there and deal with him," Shirken said, after he finished loading the weapon. "I'll drop in when I see my chance."

The three scavengers flew up to meet Vegeta as he came in and they surrounded him. Vegeta smirked to himself and powered out his aura, hoping to blind them for a second. They all backed off, shielding their eyes. The Prince shot towards the larger one, expecting him to be the toughest opponent and attempted a barrage of punches, aimed low. Tufa blocked with his lower two arms and held Vegeta in place with the upper arms. Shibo then charged in and knocked Vegeta away, only for Kuiku to be there ready. The snake-like alien caught Vegeta with his tail and held him tight in place.

That's when Shirken shot up to the Prince and shot something into Vegeta's neck. Almost immediately, Vegeta fell unconscious. The trio began to laugh as Shirken turned and descended to the ground.

"Load him onto the ship, let's get out of here."

Vegeta was taken on-board and imprisoned in the ship's brig. They soon blasted off, leaving Noca behind, presumed dead. They re-entered space and blasted off quickly, but they only narrowly got away. Another ship flew in just a few minutes later. This ship was smaller, but looked like it had a fair bit of storage.

In the pilot seat of said ship was a robot, he had two small blue eyes and a circular shaped mouth that resembled a speaker. He turned to look over his shoulder and called back to whoever was listening.

"I have scanned the planet," The robot said, his voice definitely metallic, but containing some emotion, strangely. "There does not seem to be any sign of the Scavengers anywhere in the vicinity."

An alien entered the control room and looked over the robot's shoulder at the screen. The alien had light purple skin and long dark purple hair, it was just a little longer than shoulder-length. He was the same species as Shirken, and was quite tall. He seemed rather hardened and angry. He sighed and turned away.

"Try again, they must be down there," The alien said to the robot. The robot nodded and looked down at the computer again and started to type away. The scan began and seemed to take quite some time. There was almost certainly no life left down on the planet and that was beginning to frustrate the purple-skinned alien. Suddenly, there was a ding. The alien was focussed on the screen now.

"One life-form found," The robot said as he typed away a little more, "It's a very weak signal, but there is some sign of life."

"Is it one of them?" The alien, clearly the leader, asked his robot ally. Two more beings entered the room at this point. A male alien, taller than the other and rather tough looking. He was also bald. The other, was a small female alien. Green-skinned with white hair. She was younger, perhaps a teen. They stayed a little bit back as the other two checked over the computer.

"It does not appear to match any previous records, so I do not think it is one of them," The robot replied. The leader looked down and crossed his arms.

"Leave 'em, let's get outta here," The leader said, turning away. The robot turned in his seat slightly and shifted uncomfortably.

"It appears that their life force is draining, they may be injured and in need of assistance," The robot said, as if suggesting they help. The leader turned back.

"The planet is far too unstable, there's no point. Now get on after them," The leader ordered, clearly not taking any suggestions from the others. The green-skinned alien stepped forward.

"Come on, Guida," She said, standing in his way. "Whoever is down there needs our help, and someone just happens to come by. Take a chance!"

"I cannot risk that. I have more important matters at hand," He said, brushing past the girl.

"More important than helping people. I thought that's what you wanted us to do?" She questioned. He stopped, but didn't look back. The tougher looking alien just shrugged. The robot decided to interject at this point.

"I have narrowed sensors on the energy in question. It appears to belong to a Saiyan," The robot informed them. This caught Guida's attention.

"A Saiyan?" He said as he rushed back over and checked the computer. Sure enough, his robot was right. "Damn… ok, take us down."

The robot saluted and started to redirect the ship and head down onto the surface. Guida still seemed unsure about this, but his allies were happy he made the correct decision. Once landed the occupants of the ship decided to track the signal and find the owner of that energy. Unfortunately, their scanner couldn't narrow the area enough, so they just had a large circle to search around. The green-skinned alien went off on her own, as did the larger, bulkier looking one. The leader, Guida, stayed back in the ship with his robot pilot.

The green-skinned one was close by to a large trench and was looking around the are as best she could. The flow of lava was getting rather dangerous and they would need to leave soon. There was also the added thrill of the thick black clouds that loomed overhead. They wouldn't be fun to fly through. The female continued on, she needed to find this signal, and fast. That was when she finally heard something. It sounded like a loud groan and that caught her attention. It came from the trench.

She rushed to the edge and looked down into it, "Hello? Anybody there?"

There was no response, but she was certain that it came from down there. She looked back over her shoulder at the ship and the location of her ally. None of them would condone this, but she jumped down inside the trench to help the trapped person. She slid down the side, trying to grip on as best she could and slow herself down, but it wasn't easy. Eventually there was a piece of rock sticking out that was stable enough to stand on. She landed and looked down to see the young male laying to the side as the lava flow rose higher. This was going to be dangerous.

She dropped down one more time and landed next to the body. This was her first time seeing a Saiyan and wondered what made them so special, but she just shook her head and started to move him, but realised that he was very injured. There were some burns on his left leg and a lot of blood coming from that arm. She needed help.

"Niku!" She called out, before activating her tracker. Up above, the large alien, Niku, noticed the tracker come alive and turned around to make his way in that direction. He rushed over and dropped down to help lift the boy out. They got up to the top of the trench and went back to the ship. Niku and the female entered and immediately took the Saiyan to their medical bay.

Guida turned to the robot, "Airen, perform a tech-scan. We need to see if he has a ship."

The robot did as he was told, but the scan came up as a strong negative. Guida sighed and slumped back in his seat.

"Get us outta here," He commanded the robot. Airen saluted and the ship took off, blasting off into space once more. Once the ship was on-course Guida stood up. "Airen, set the ship to auto-pilot, go check on the boy."

"Yes, sir," Airen said as he stood up and rushed back to the medical bay. He entered the room to see the female sitting there trying to clean up his wounds. The robot placed a hand on her shoulder. "Talia, you should step back and let me scan him to see what can be done."

Airen put his hand over the Saiyan and got to scanning.

"It is remarkable. His cells are regenerating on their own. He is naturally re-healing himself. Outstanding," Airen said. Talia looked at the boy and wondered what he would be like once fully-healed. "It is best we leave him now."

Airen went off to continue piloting the ship. Guida had decided to head to his quarters and rest, while Niku was sitting not too far from the medical bay, just in case. Talia stayed there though. She didn't know if leaving him completely alone would be a good idea.

A couple of hours later, the boy woke up. He wasn't very happy to find himself in a ship surrounded by strange aliens. He doesn't recognise them and assumes they were the ones who attacked him. He didn't power up, but he tried to sit up. Talia instantly held him down.

"Woah, woah. Calm down! You're safe!" Talia said, getting a little worried. Niku rushed in and did his best to hold him down.

"Let me go!" Noca said, getting angered. He looked at Niku and his eyes flashed teal, but Niku passed it off. Noca knocked Niku back and sat up, taking a deep breath. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and saw that he was no longer Super Saiyan 2. Being unconscious like that must've knocked the energy out of him. Noca tried to stand but soon noticed his leg was slightly burned. "What happened to me?"

"You were trapped down a trench on that damned planet," Niku explained, "You're lucky that Talia here found you."

Noca looked to the green-skinned alien and nodded. "Talia," he mouthed to himself as he tried to move some more. Talia stepped forward to help him, but Noca brushed it off. "Where is Vegeta?"

Niku looked to Talia and then she looked back to Noca.

"There was no one with you. You were the only one down there…" She explained. Noca shook his head.

"No… he must be out there. Our ship, what about our ship?" He asked. Talia shook her head.

"You were the only thing we could find," Talia explained. Soon they were joined by Guida and he had his say.

"Those scavengers probably stole it. Probably have your friend as well," Guida glared at Noca and the teen Saiyan felt uneasy. He shifted in his spot on the bed, but then looked back to Talia.

"Thanks for helping me, but I need to go," Noca explained as he finally stood up.

"And where do you think you'll be going in the middle of space?" Guida said, Noca looked into his eyes and glared. "We'll take you to the nearest spaceport, you can make your way from there. With any luck, we'll find those scavengers there."

"We're after them too," Niku followed up, he had a deep voice, but sounded friendly. "We're following them to the traders' outpost on Eoz."

Noca finally started to relax and sat back down. He took a couple of breaths and levelled out his thoughts. Talia looked him up and down and narrowed her eyes. Guida just stood there, looking down at the ground.

"Guess we should introduce ourselves," Niku said, "I'm Niku, this is our leader, Guida and the girl that saved you, Talia."

"Nice to meet you, I guess…" Noca said, rubbing his eyes.

"And I am Airen, the robot pilot!" The robot said, barging into the room and holding his hand out for Noca to shake. The teen was taken by surprise and was leaning back.

"His name is actually AIR-THREE-EN (AIR-3N), but we call him Airen," Talia explained. Noca shook Airen's hand and nodded awkwardly. "You should probably rest."

Talia left the room after that and so did Guida, followed shortly by Airen. Niku was the last to go, after giving Noca an awkward nod. The teen took a deep breath and lay back down. He may as well get a little bit of sleep while he could. He would have plenty of chances to ask more about them once he had a little bit of rest.

He just hoped that Vegeta was ok.

Hope you enjoyed this. Some interesting characters, eh? To be honest, the new characters introduced in this are adapted from characters that were meant to appear in my spin-off. They will become important as time goes on, so I hope they will be well received. They will get plenty of character development in the future and I am planning for them to have their own arc or story at some point, just to give them a backstory.

Either way, hope you liked what you read. I know it's shorter than the previous chapter, but the next one is longer so... look forward to that.

Next Time... Chapter 21: Outpost Conflict