One year later, age 748 (Earth Age)
"What is that thing on your face?" Vegeta demanded, stepping out of the pod. They were on some uninhabited world known for its fearsome beasts capable of using ki, and their team had been tasked with both capturing enough for breeding and studying, and otherwise wiping the creatures out. Vegeta, Nappa, and Gine had just arrived after a different mission, striking at the Galactic Patrol after they got a bit uppity.
"You like it? I grew it myself," Meys wiggled the moustache on his face. It was a thin thing, spreading across his lip. He was working on a goatee, as well, but the two failed to meet in the middle for a fuller beard.
"It's disgusting. Get rid of it."
Meys crossed his arms, and lifted his chin, "Is that an order, Prince Vegeta?"
"Meys, maybe you should-" Nappa started, but Gine held his arm.
Vegeta scowled at Meys, "When your Prince tells you something, it's Holy Writ."
Meys shrugged, pulled out a knife, and threw it into the ground between them, "If you hate my moustache so much, shave it yourself. Otherwise, you're the Prince of Saiyans, not moustaches."
Vegeta looked at the knife, and then at Meys.
"All right."
Meys let out a yelp as Vegeta charged straight at him, pulling the knife out of the ground as he flew, and tackled the Saiyan across the field. Meys tried to stand, but Vegeta was far too fast for him, and the Prince pinned Meys on the ground. Meys punched Vegeta a few times in the face and chest, but Vegeta pressed Meys's head to the ground.
"Hold still, you don't want me to cut you," Vegeta warned as he brought Meys's knife up to the Saiyan's face, and began to slowly and carefully scrape Meys's facial hair off.
Gine and Nappa couldn't help but laugh as Meys let out yelps and screams while Vegeta literally shaved him in the middle of the field, in front of all the support personnel and the other Saiyans. Vegeta stabbed the knife into the ground once he was done, and stepped off Meys, who rubbed his lip, his lower lip quivering while his upper lip bled on his glove.
"There. Problem solved," Vegeta said.
Meys stood up, wiping the blood off his shaved lip, and retrieved his knife, "You'll have to keep at it if you want to defeat my moustache, Prince Vegeta! We won't be defeated that easily, mark my words, one day you won't take it from me!"
"On that day you may actually have my respect," Vegeta sneered as he sauntered away. Meys grinned at the Prince's back, wiped off his knife, and put it back into his holster, before floating towards Gine and Nappa.
"What was that all about?" one of the Frieza Force support personnel asked. Gine shrugged.
"Saiyan Pride. You wouldn't understand."
"Welcome to Nudal, General Nappa, Gine," Meys said, "We're all set up over that ridge."
"What's your progress?" Nappa asked as they began to walk with him to the base.
"We've got all the subjects the eggheads wanted already, and they tell us we've got the beasts sixty-percent wiped out in the wild," Meys said, "Was a bit challenging at first, but we've got the hang of it now. Should be done before the end of the week, I think."
"End of the week? Why so long?" Nappa demanded. Meys shrugged.
"It's not like we're wiping out bases, which we can find from orbit and wipe out in a few hours and force a government into surrender. We're hunting down critters that cover the whole planet, including their polar regions. Imagine trying to kill every grainrat on Planet Vegeta. We've taken to calling them Demsu. It's kind of shame we're wiping them out, they'd be great training for Saiyan kids to train against. Might make good pets."
"What kids?" Nappa growled. Meys shrugged.
"Good point. Just saying, I wish we had Demsu when I was a tot," Meys said. He punched his hand, "Might be fun to kick some ass with a little buddy following me around. Like a story, you know? A Saiyan and his pet Demsu."
"We'll keep it in mind, Meys," Gine laughed. When they arrived at the home base, Gine quickly found her tent, and hung up her pack, sat on the bed, and waited, wringing her hands. It was good to see Meys in a happy mood, even after Vegeta deciding to shave his moustache. He was standing up for himself without directly challenging the Prince of Nappa, which was a good sign; she hoped this would all become a sort of good humor between the Saiyans, High and Low class.
"Gine?" Nappa called to her.
"I'm in here," she called out, and Nappa opened the flap, a short, thin, yellow alien wearing Frieza Force armor stepping in before he did, with a smirk on his face.
"We cannot trust him," Nappa gestured to the alien as soon as he was inside, "Why did you even contact him?"
Gine counted on her fingers, "First, because he's the only one with the clearance to keep this quiet. Second, he knows more about Saiyans than any other scientist alive. Third, he's far too curious to see how this plays out to say anything. Isn't that right, Kikono?"
The alien's grin showed his delight at the situation presented to him. Despite his being in such incredible danger, he was in full control of everything, and the Saiyans knew it.
"You're lucky these Demsu are so interesting on their own, otherwise I probably would have just let one of my underlings handle this, and who knows who they'd talk to," Kikono cooed.
"You're lucky we-" Nappa started to hiss at him.
"We are grateful for your time and expertise, Doctor," she interjected, bowing to him, "This is a great concern to me, and there are few who could have handled this."
"Hmm, quite," Kikono glanced up at Nappa, who was clearly holding himself back from pummeling him, "Frankly I never thought I'd be working with Saiyans again, this was a rare treat, really. I've studied your people for a long time."
"The pleasure is mine, Doctor. Do you have the results?" Gine asked. Kikono handed her a datapad, which he unlocked and handed over to Gine.
"Congratulations, hormone balances tell me it's a girl."
Nappa's rage was dropped instantly as he rushed over to read the datapad along with Gine. She tapped on the datapad to show where it confirmed what Kikono had just said; Nappa let out a cheer and squeezed Gine in a bear hug which she tried to squirm her way out of.
Kikono chuckled, "You Saiyans aren't usually this sentimental."
"Things change when your species is on the brink of extinction," Gine took in a breath.
Kikono nodded, "That's one way of looking at it."
"Wait, what about a chamber?" Nappa asked, "How are we going to get our hands on one? There's only going to be a few of them left, at least for Saiyans."
Kikono shrugged, "I'm sure I could dig one up from storage somewhere...But it will cost you."
Nappa clenched his fist, "What's the price?"
"Don't worry about it," Gine shook her head, "Because it's like you said, Nappa. We can't trust him. If we take an Incubation Chamber from him, he could flush the baby at any time, without us being able to do anything. The birth of this child would be in the hands and at the whim of Lord Frieza, and I won't have that."
Kikono tilted his head, studying Gine carefully, and pondered what she'd said.
"Then what are we going to do for an incubation chamber? I bet Raditz could build one out of the equipment here, and then we'd have full control! We could even put it in a pod, and have it follow us through our missions, and nobody would know!" Nappa nodded, satisfied with his solution, "See? We don't need you after all!"
"That's not what she's thinking," Kikono remarked, cocking an eyebrow and standing straight, "You're not going to use one, are you?"
Gine squeezed her glove while holding her eyes shut. She only opened her eyes to confirm that Nappa was trying to figure out what was just said, and saw the look of shock on his face appear.
"You can't possibly mean-" he stammered.
"Think about it, Nappa," Gine pleaded, "One way or another, Frieza is going to find out about this baby. If we have it in a Chamber, they're going to destroy it, and if that happens, you and I, we wouldn't stop fighting until we were killed. We'd all get wiped out trying to avenge this baby, and nobody would know why."
"But if you carry the baby, then none of your enemies will risk taking such a bold, open move," Kikono extrapolated, "They'll still try, you know."
"When they do, I'll just kill them myself, and we'll see just how committed my enemies are," Gine shrugged. Kikono nodded.
"Are you sure about this? There's a lot of different things we could do. What about...Maybe sending it to...You know…" Nappa gestured to the sky beyond the tent, avoiding the word 'Kakarot.' Gine nodded.
"It's a good idea, but no. This is our baby, Nappa. Our pride, our future. This will push us, make us stronger, and we will show the whole galaxy that the Saiyans are not done yet. That we protect our own. I want to give this child what's best, but that isn't as clear as it was before. So I'd rather have her close at hand, where I can defend her myself, rather than relying on trickery or exile or technology," Gine explained. Nappa rested his forehead against hers, smiling.
"Together."
"Together."
Kikono groaned, "Well if you insist on gestating it yourself, that gives me some opportunities to study it further. So long as you indulge me with the occasional test, Gine, you'll have no leaks from me. Do we have a deal?"
"Nothing remote," Gine said, "You do them in person, at our location. Raditz will assist you. You use no equipment he isn't familiar with."
Kikono held out his hands to placate, "All reasonable requests. Anything else?"
"No assistants, nobody knows. Not even a driver," Gine added, "And I expect you to hold to the spirit of this agreement. I don't want to have to list off a billion exceptions just for you to bring in a roach with a camera or something and claim innocence because I didn't specify it."
"On my honor, then," Kikono bowed to her.
"As if," Nappa muttered.
"One does not break the trust of a Saiyan. You know how we deal with slights to our pride."
"Of course. I expect we will be on this planet for quite some time; these Demsu are far more interesting than originally thought. I think this experiment may be extended while we conduct fuller research into the ecological needs of the Demsu. We may need to extend your contract here, though I don't think there's any need to hold up all of your team. Consider who you can spare; I think we'll only need three on-planet or so," Kikono stepped towards the flap, "You should consider who would be best suited for this mission."
Gine and Nappa exchanged glances as Kikono left; the implication was clear: Nappa wouldn't be on-planet for the child's arrival.
Gine, Raditz, and Meys were the ones left on the planet, dealing with the Demsu. Nappa had properly threatened Meys to protect Gine and the baby or be disintegrated; at first it had shaken Meys, but he quickly took to the idea of becoming an 'Uncle Meys' and, to hear him tell it, he'd planned out every milestone for his 'niece.'
Raditz was understandably paranoid about Kikono, and quickly because the head scientist's 'field assistant' on the planet. The truth was, Raditz was like his father, and was far more technically-minded than most people gave Saiyans credit for. As a result, he took to the role, building and testing his own tools for his duties, and learning the equipment Kikono was using both on the Demsu and for his fetal sister.
Gine allowed nothing to slow or stop her duties; they were here to observe and exterminate the Demsu, and even as her pregnancy became obvious, she kept pushing herself to work and train even harder. Meys was concerned about this, of course, but quickly became Raditz and Gine's sparring partner when he decided that any alternatives were too risky.
Kikono was only able to visit for a few days each month, assuaging fears of his trying some underhanded tactic; the three Saiyans were left to their own devices, and Raditz conducted most of the tests the scientist wanted.
As they had less than a year, only so much on the Demsu could be learned. Mostly, they were tagged and observed by drones until the scientists decided that they had enough data, at which point the three Saiyans were called in to first capture live specimens, and then wipe out packs of the creatures. There were different kinds of Demsu, with the largest being as tall at the shoulder as Gine was. These largest were omnivores, living in nomadic herds that ate anything they could dig, scavenge, or kill. The smallest were capable of both unpowered and Ki flight, and would fly straight at flying prey; these would sometimes hunt in swarms, and were the most dangerous to exterminate or capture, as they required the swarms to mate. This meant they'd had to capture hundreds of live specimens.
The Saiyans had killed off a few colonies in frustration with those.
Most Demsu, however, were no taller at the shoulder than Gine's waist, and about the size and weight of the average Saiyan. They were capable of Ki abilities like strength boosts, speed, and ki blasts from their mouth, which they used for ranged attacks, territorial or mating fights, and even cooking their food. They were extremely intelligent, and most of the Saiyans' time was spent wiping out packs of these animals.
Kikono's instruction to study the Demsu in greater detail made it seem, on the surface, that progress was slow, but the truth was that they were on schedule to wipe them out. The three of them were capable of wiping out entire regions of the creatures with their scouters, and the release of invasive animals made tracking down nests a non-issue: Once the parents were slain, the Demsu litters would be wiped out by creatures trained to sniff them out.
It was brutal and sickening work; Gine went to bed every night feeling like a hypocrite, no better than Frieza.
The constant fighting and hunting of the creatures had done quite well for their power, however; even Raditz was peaking a Power Level over 3,000 these days, while Meys had hit 2,000. Gine had yet to admit to Raditz that she had matched Nappa's original 4,000, though Nappa had surpassed that to about 6,000 by pushing himself to keep ahead of her.
There was an old wive's tale that the real reason that Saiyans had switched to Incubation Chambers was that, once Power Levels could be easily measured, they realized Saiyan women grew far more powerful after childbirth, and they simply said the reason for the switch was so that Saiyan women could keep fighting. Gine didn't feel more powerful, just constantly having to pee and nauseous.
The first attempt on Gine was when a pen of Demsu was knocked open while the Saiyans were dragging live specimens into pens. They were some of the largest Demsu specimens they'd collected, and the creatures knocked Meys aside immediately, who had let off a yell that had warned Raditz and Gine to get out of the way. They spent the rest of the day wrangling the creatures, and only found out it was intentional when the security chief, some orange alien with big eyes named Lemo, told them what he'd discovered during his investigation. Raditz accepted Lemo's offer to take the life of the criminal by feeding the perpetrator to the same Demsu the alien had released.
The second attempt was more overt; a sniper attempted to shoot her, but Lemo, already on his toes after the last attempt, intercepted the sniper before he'd been able to shoot. It wouldn't have been enough to kill her even if the sniper had managed to hit her; her power had grown out of the range of most conventional blaster weaponry. The sniper, too, had been fed to the Demsu, and Lemo swore that no more attempts would happen under his watch.
Lemo nearly kept his promise, but the third and final couldn't have been helped, as it was committed by a member of the Ginyu Force.
The delivery date was only a few weeks away when Kikono returned, this time for the preparation of the final extermination of the Demsu. They'd collected as many samples as they felt necessary to breed and reseed the species if the Frieza Force desired, and, officially, Kikono was here to review the final results. The project had been extended further than originally anticipated, and thus well over-budget, and, as head of Research and Development, Kikono was responsible for determining if the endeavor was worth the extra expenditures.
Of course the fact it coincided with the birth of the Saiyan child was coincidental.
Kikono had Gine and Raditz in his lab, when the door chime buzzed.
"Go away, I'm busy."
All three of them looked to the door when the security override was activated.
"What is the meaning of this!" Kikono hissed. Raditz held up his hand, charging a Ki blast when Lemo entered, holding a blaster. Instead of gawking at them, he peeked back through the door, before shutting it. He looked over at the three in the lab, and he went a bit pale.
"Erm, sorry for the...Intrusion, Doctor, but you all need to get out of here," Lemo said.
"I'm a little busy giving birth, Lemo," Gine growled at him.
"Yeah, I figured, which is why it's a really inconvenient time for a member of the Ginyu Force to show up with about a dozen goons," Lemo explained, "Guess where they're going to look for you first?"
GIne took a few breaths, trying to focus, "So either I give birth right now or we find a way for us to run."
"I'll take care of this," Raditz said, stepping forward towards the door.
"No! Raditz, they'll kill you!"
"They'll try."
Raditz stepped out of the door. Lemo looked over at Gine and Kikono, and followed him out. They were quickly joined by Meys-as well as a half dozen armed Frieza Force soldiers, and Guldo, his hands on his hips, looking smug.
"Saiyan. You're in the way. I need to speak with the Doctor," Guldo said.
"The doctor is busy right now and can't be interrupted. You'll have to come back later," Raditz said, crossing his arms.
"Well see that's just too bad, I've got urgent business, so whatever the Doctor is working on can wait. So I'll say this only once more, get out of my way, Saiyan. Though, if you really want to play, I'm more than happy to oblige you," Guldo snickered. Lemo switched on his scouter to get a reading on Guldo and his goons; 1,000 for each goon, and 19,000 for Guldo himself. Raditz was clocked at 3k, and Meys at 2k. Lemo couldn't even use Ki attacks, and might as well not even have a Power Level; all he had was his blaster, and he knew how unconventional and dangerous Guldo was.
Lemo's eyes widened when he realized something. He looked to the Saiyans, then at Guldo. Lemo swallowed, and booked it away from what was about to be a battlefield, ignored by the real fighters.
Raditz assumed a fighting stance, "You're just going to have to be patient, because you're not getting in here."
"Then you'll just have to die. Men? Get him."
The soldiers flew into action, letting loose with Ki blasts as they charges, forcing Raditz and Meys to block the attacks. They charged straight into the melee, knowing they were outnumbered, while Guldo watched his soldiers beat down on the Saiyan pair, laughing all the while.
Guldo, however, had not anticipated the Saiyans' training. Raditz and the Saiyan squad had been training together now for years, and they were used to fighting in small groups against larger numbers of opponents. As a group, the Saiyans were overpowered, but these soldiers weren't trained and drilled to work as a pair the way they were. Instead of a team power level of 12,000, the soldiers were instead 12 men with Power Levels of 1,000, and the Saiyans knew how to divide and conquer a group like that with ease, and they made short work of the squad, leaving Guldo steaming.
"Looks like the Chief decided to be a coward and bowed out," Meys said, panting; just because they won didn't mean he hadn't taken a number of hits.
"Only the strong can be cowardly," Raditz said, flexing his fists, "The weak have no place on the battlefield."
"Then why are you here?" Guldo chuckled, "Just because you beat my men doesn't mean you've got a chance against me! I'm Guldo, of the Ginyu Force, and you're dead!"
Guldo let out a series of Ki blasts at the Saiyans, more than they could keep up with, and holes were blown into the side of the lab. Raditz and Meys flew straight at Guldo, ready to lay down some physical attacks, but Guldo held his breath to freeze the pair, and strutted over into the lab through the holes he'd made.
"Well well well, look at what we have here," Guldo snickered, "A momma monkey and her little baby. So cute, I could just pinch their little heads off."
Kikono stepps back from Gine and the baby, "I have what I need, just leave me out of this!"
"Oh, no, Doctor, don't think you're getting off that easily. You allowed this to happen, so when I'm through with them, I'm taking you right to Lord Frieza. He'll be very interested in what I've found here," Guldo taunted. Gine slid off the table, holding the baby tight to her chest. Her legs wanted to buckle, but she willed them to keep standing, and be ready to run.
"Ah, ah, ah, you can't hide and you can't run from Guldo!" he taunted, raising his arm and firing. Gine was quick, though, and dodged the attack, while Kikono fled his lab.
"You Saiyans are a real pain in the ass!" he kept firing while Gine ran from the blasts. His large eyes on the sides of his head rotated and gazed at Raditz and Meys, who were flying at him again. Guldo froze the Saiyans and picked up lab equipment laying around him with his telekinesis, and pelted the junk at them, sending them sprawling from the blows. Gine fired a blast, hitting him square in the face, and he turned his gaze to her.
"All right, that's enough of that!" he snarled, and stopped; Gine was no longer holding the child, "Damn you! Where's the brat?"
Gine replied by holding up both her hands and shouting, "BROILER!"
Guldo let out a scream as the flaming Ki blast enveloped his head, and he patted it out with his hands. Meys and Raditz struck Guldo, sending him flying out of the lab and away from the compound, allowing Gine to grab the baby from where she'd hidden her, and run in the opposite direction. Meys and Raditz chased after Guldo, who was standing and snarling at them when they'd arrived.
"All right, I've had enough of this!" he bellowed, pulling boulders out of the ground, "You all die now!"
"Double Sunday!" Raditz yelled, firing off his special move to get a sudden burst of speed to dodge the boulders. Meys was not so lucky, and was smacked head-on by the attack. Just before Raditz collided with Guldo, the mercenary held his breath, and ran away from Raditz to a better spot, where he would more easily fling objects at him. He let his breath go, and laughed as Raditz face-planted right into the hill.
"You know what else is funny?" Guldo heard someone say. He spun around, and was met with a flamethrower to the face as Lemo pulled the trigger on the weapon he'd run to retrieve. As Guldo screamed and patted at his face to get the ignited fluid off of him, Raditz had recovered, and landed before Guldo.
The weakest member of the Ginyu Force let out a wheeze as he tried to catch his breath, only to feel pain and start to cough, and then felt nothing as Raditz ended him with a Saturday Crush. Raditz fell to his knees over Guldo's corpse, and he started to laugh.
"Oh, man...Oh, no, no, this is bad, what did I just do, oh no…" Lemo started to hyperventilate at the implications of what he'd just done.
"You," Raditz pointed his finger at Lemo, "You just saved us all."
"And now we're dead. We are so dead, so dead…"
"No, see, Guldo's not a bright man," Raditz stood up, "And he decided he could handle the Demsu, and decided to get a closer look. But they're grumpy, and we haven't been treating them well."
"Wait...are you suggesting...We feed them to the Demsu a third time?" Lemo asked. Raditz shrugged.
"It's a dangerous planet. And with so many...His men fought so bravely to rescue their commander, it's a shame they perished with him," Raditz laughed, "Really, people have to be more careful around the beasts."
Lemo scratched his head, "If this gets back to me, I'm a dead man, Raditz."
"We're all dead if they decide to care," Raditz picked up Guldo's body, "Good work with the flamethrower. I didn't expect you to come back."
"Well, I figured, if his special power requires him to hold his breath, then let's make it hard for him to breathe," Lemo presented the flamethrower, "Besides, if he beat you, he'd probably have killed everyone here or even blown up the planet just to keep everyone quiet about the whole thing."
Lemo rolled his eyes, "You know. Meteor crash. Terrible coincidence, wouldn't you say?"
Raditz let out a grunt, and flew over to Meys, who was digging himself out.
"Sorry about that, Raditz," Meys coughed, "Bastard's faster than I gave him credit for."
"We nearly died. You need to get better," Raditz pulled him out, "Thank you."
Meys wiped himself off, and poked at his scouter, "Happy to help. Let's go find Gine."
After dropping Guldo's body into the Demsu pens, they took to the skies, leaving Lemo to haul the rest of the bodies. It took a few hours of searching, but they found Gine following a pack of Demsu to hide her power level. She had spotted them, as well, and, not knowing if they were friend or foe, she fled to a cave, and laid an ambush for them which nearly took Meys's head off.
"GINE! Watch it, it's us!" he yelped. She stepped out of the darkness, covered in blood and dirt, clutching the baby.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Lemo came out with a flamethrower, and torched his face, like your Broiler attack. Then I killed him with a Saturday Crush. We're feeding him and his men to the Demsu, like the other attackers," Raditz explained. Gine let out a sigh of relief.
"If I have another baby, I'm taking my chances with the Incubation Chamber," she lamented, and held up the Saiyan girl, who squirmed and fussed, "Raditz? Say hello to your baby sister."
Raditz leaned over, and offered his finger; the baby squeezed it.
"Ah! She's got Nappa's grip!" he laughed, "Ow! Give it back!"
"She got a name?" Meys asked, grinning at her. Gine wiped the baby's head with her shirt.
"Yeah. Her name is Brussa."
