Chapter 10.
A Solution.

Rhuba was completely out of breath after sprinting so hard to escape.
Her ears were still ringing while the surrounding trees popped and burst open as tiny metal fragments shot towards her.
Years without a problem. Years of living peacefully on their own and now suddenly she found herself running for her life.
When they were attacked, she and Garagus didn't even know what hit them.
They were just flying around together happily as you like, then suddenly Garagus was hit by something and they dropped from the sky like stones.
Rhuba was careful with her directions though. Garagus was still back there and she wasn't going to leave him behind to be killed.

While she took cover under the exposed roots of a dying tree, the drones that had been chasing her whizzed past, giving her a small opening to smash the first of them.
It was hard, and heavy to take down in one hit. But once her feet were on the ground she managed to crush the hull enough to cause permanent damage.
This caused her to be exposed long enough for the second drone to take aim and fire.
A spinning wire was shot at her. It lassoed around her body and emitted a sharp jolt of electricity that caused her to collapse in screaming pain.

The discharges were constant, giving her another jolt every thirty seconds to keep her paralysed until the patrol could catch up.
"We found the target. Female, looks around the same age as the other."

Rhuba snarled and tried to struggle to get free as the men walked around her. But the sight of them brandishing their weapons put fear into her. The drones are expendable and are designed to capture Saiyans but soldiers are giving deadly weapons for personal defence.

"No sir, the trees are too dense to land." The soldier in armour said to himself, as far as Rhuba could tell. She hissed aggressively when he looked at her. "She is conscious… yes sir." He nodded to another to keep the gun on her.
He'd seen how to handle Saiyans before, but he'd never had to do it himself yet. Walking around to the back of her, then lifted her pelt skirt to expose and grab her tail.
Her body jolted for a sudden moment before relaxing.

"uh, how to deactivate a Saiyan?" One laughed as their team leader fastened a thick plastic cord around her tail to keep the pressure on so she could be safely carried through the trees.

Rhuba grunted every few steps as his shoulder jabbed her in the stomach, but she was completely unable to resist until they were out of the woods and brought into a clearing, where a transport ship was waiting for them.

"In you go, sweetheart," The soldier said as he pushed Rhuba into the back of a cage before moving off to immediately start washing his hands.
The Saiyans don't notice it due to their standard of living but compared to the Tuffles, wearing their greasy pelts all day and not one of them have ever been introduced to soap before, they don't half stink.

As the ship ascended and prepared to move, Rhuba could only stare out from her cage.
With time and lots of effort, she was able to reach behind and feel the tag clamping down on her tail. Getting it off on her own though was impossible.
Of course, that was the point.
The Tuffles know their weaknesses. Know how to kill Saiyans.
Just like Chief Vegeta warned all those years ago. Taking the fight to them maybe wasn't so unwarranted after all.

Rhuba, Garagus and Cressin thought they could wait out the war. Live in seclusion and without spilling blood on either side.
But now the Tuffles have found them, and Rhuba feared that their fate is surely to die in these cages. Her only hope now was that Cressin gets away.
Rhuba and Garagus were out on their own when they got ambushed. He tried to fight them off while she escaped, knowing he could simply fly away to catch up.
But before they opened fire, Rhuba saw them surround a paralysed Garagus. That's when the drones showed up and started chasing her.

"We're now in Rutentark's air space, landing in three minutes."

After a long flight, the ship began to slow down as it entered a demolished city. The pilots landed down in an old flood channel that as since been reconditioned to have the water level rise and lower at certain points with a flick of a switch.
No Saiyan with their lack of ingenuity could even begin to understand how such a thing would be possible, so hiding an underground base with the way in being completely submerged when not in use was perfect.
The ship was built so the entrance would sit in the water current. New channels would open keep the flow consistent while a set of walls surrounded the lower hull and drained away the trapped water.
To any Saiyan looking in on it, it would look like the ship was just sitting in a river. Any conclusion they come up with as to why would most likely be an incorrect one.

Once the ship was in position and the water level started to lower, Rhuba started to freak out hearing loud noise similar but far scarier to when heavy rain batters off the den. When that finally stopped, even more noises started up as light filled the room and the two guards put things into motion to get her cage moving out of the hold, down a ramp into a few seconds of sunlight before being pushed back into another tunnel where a metal door shut behind them.
"Is that all?"
"Yes, all clear."
Yellow lights flashed as the sound of rushing water once again filled the room.
"Got two this time."
"You two are called back to the ship. Advise the pilot that we detected movement nearby."

Rhuba watched from inside her box as she was wheeled backwards into one room that was very small, but felt as though it was moving somehow.
"Floor B-Seven." Spoke a strange voice.
When the doors opened, the hall they were just in had changed into something completely different. People that didn't look like soldiers were looking back at her as she was wheeled in. It took her a moment to take in her surroundings, but there actually were a few Saiyans tied down on tables already.
Rhuba didn't know what was happening to them, but she knew it terrified her.

"Two."

"Just in time, these are almost…" The man locked eyes with Rhuba in the cage. Seeing the scared look of someone so young, even a Saiyan, it just made him stiffen his expression. "Just get them in and take these two back to the cells."

The captive Saiyans on the table were too weak to even make threats as they were swapped out for Rhuba.
The soldier just left her there as he went back to the cage to get someone else.

"Ga…gus…" Rhuba gasped, seeing Garagus lay unconscious behind the metal bars before being pulled out by two soldiers to be dropped on the table across from her.

Men and women wearing white walked over to the pair of them. Rhuba tried to pull away as they began cutting off her pelts.
"fu-k off!" Aside from growling under her breath, she was otherwise unable to stop them.

Across the way, the same was happening to Garagus.
Their pelt and fur clothes were removed and carted away to be incinerated, while they were redressed with fabrics similar to the ones in white. Once they were done redressing them, her wrists were strapped in palm facing up just out next to her hips.
The unnatural position alone was uncomfortable, but some of her weight was bearing down on where her tail met her spine, causing a feeling like it was bending the wrong way and she didn't even have the strength to shift herself into a better position.

With everyone happening, the pain and fear of not knowing where she was or what was going to happen to them.
Rhuba couldn't bear to look at anything anymore. But the resting poison her head found forced her to stare into an intense lamp shining overhead. The blinding light raying down on her face that felt as though it were cooking her head with each passing second. Even shutting her eyes did nothing to stop the headache it induced.

It took a while before someone would come over for something other than to check on her bindings.
"Here, drink something." He said, pushing down on the bottom of the table up so Rhuba was moved into a more upright position.

Rhuba forced herself to look the other way. Thirsty as she was, the idea of accepting anything from them repulsed her, after seeing the state of the Saiyans she and Garagus replaced on these tables.

"Fine then." The man muttered before taking his bottle over to the still unconscious Garagus and tried poured a little water over his face to prompt him to wake up. "Drink" He demanded.

Rhuba rolled her head back over after hearing Garagus's distressed coughing, but simply seeing him awake brought just the slightest feeling of hope to her.

"Hey, hey! What are you doing?" Called someone who sounded more in charge. "I'd rather get this done before he wakes up."

Rhuba watched with tired eyes as he moved towards Garagus. He had a table laid out for him, with all sorts of tools for him to use.
But he only needed the one for now. Solution 11-2-36-jin.
After filling his syringe, the doctor injected Garagus.

"Okay, now you can wake him." The doctor turned his sights on Rhuba.
She watched in panic. Although she did not understand what she was seeing, she knew she should be afraid.
"It doesn't hurt, I assure you." He said before checking her arms for a suitable vein. "No need to be afraid."

Rhuba could see the needle and knew he was going to stab her with it.
"oh no… No!" She struggled and pulled with any fibre of strength she had, which right now wasn't enough.
But across the way, she could see Garagus starting to wake up, confused and unsure of where he was. Rhuba pulled everything she had into just to scream his name, making him focus on her.

The Tuffles had caught dozens of Saiyans over the years. But they'd never caught an Alpha, so they had nothing in place to deal with a Saiyan that was immune to having his tail tied.

Garagus pulled on his restraints until they tore clean off.
The doctor heard, dropped the syringe and called for all medical staff to retreat.

Garagus broke his table completely in his desperate attempts to free himself and reach Rhuba.
"You okay?" He carefully broke her restraints and helped her to her feet.

But she was weak, unable to stand up. "mu, tail…" She gasped, reaching behind. Garagus tried to pull it off with his hands, but it only hurt her more. The only way to get it off was to break it.

"Wait one minute," Garagus took a knee and carefully set her resting over it so he could try to tear through the tie with his teeth. Rhuba hissed as strength suddenly flooded into her arms and legs again.

She lifted herself from his lap and looked him over. "And you," She turned him away before biting through the tag on his tail too. Once he was free of it, she checked his arm. Even though she saw him be stabbed, there wasn't much of a wound that she could see. "They did something to you, how do you feel?"

"Fine…" Garagus looked at the red dot on his arm. He felt nothing wrong, no obvious sign of injury as far as either of them could tell.
For now, their only mission was to escape. Should they find anyone they can interrogate on the way out, only then will they ask questions.

But suddenly the room got dark.
"what was that?" Garagus whispered, keeping a hand out to keep a check on where Rhuba was. The two clung to each other as the dimmer lights came on with yellow flashes.

"All guards to converge on corridor seven immediately! Two Saiyans have broke free!"

"Who's saying that?" Garagus asked, looking at the ceiling for the voice's owner.

"Watch out!" Rhuba pulled Garagus behind a wall when a team of gunmen appeared down the corridor the doctor ran down.

Garagus was grazed by the plasma rifle, but it could have been worse had it been a direct hit. Especially if it hit Rhuba.
"Keep your head down." He warned before stepping out of cover to return fire with blasts of his own.

While he engaged the first-responders, Rhuba spotted more guards preparing to breach the double doors that he and she were brought in through.
She wasted no time to pounce at them, grabbing the closest one and brought her fist down hard on his soon to be shattered collar bone.

"I've killed four!" Garagus called over his shoulder to her while his sight on the hall he was defending.

"I got these!" She replied before throwing the limp body in her hands at the fleeing guards.

They've all got orders to treat Saiyans as if fighting a wildfire, from a distance and Never let them grab you. Rhuba gave chase though, and she was very fast on foot compared to them.
She grabbed one from the back of the neck and crashed him down on the floor before chasing after the next, and the next.

We spent all this time trying to avoid hurting you, but now I don't care anymore. She thought, kicking away someone's feet before he dropped to the floor in a disorientated heap.
Rhuba grabbed the rifle before he could take aim from the floor and bashed him in the shoulder with her heel before snapping the weapon in half.

"Rhuba!" Garagus called as he ran up to meet her. "How do we get out?"

Rhuba tried to think. She was awake for her transport but her field of view consisted mostly metal bars, a floor, and the bottom forth of long stretches of wall.
"Ask this one." She lifted one of her injured by the uniform collar. It alone made him yell in pain from his dislocated arm, but Rhuba set her foot up against his knee just to be sure. "How do we get out?"

"I can't help you…" The man looked Rhuba defiantly in the eye as he spoke, then shrieked in agony when she put her full weight on his knee.

"Forget it Rhuba." Garagus had his eyes set on the ceiling. If he could get under the open sky, he could fly them both to safety and find their way home.
There's no need to risk their lives in these tunnels.

Standing back from where he intended to aim, Garagus pulled his hands back to charge up a more powerful blast than what he'd normally use in a fight. It should be enough to shatter whatever kind of stone lay between them and the outside.

"no no No, What is he-!" The Tuffle man didn't get a chance to voice his crucial objections before Garagus unleashed his power on the ceiling.

Just as quickly as his energy punched through the roof, water from the canal started gushing in, sweeping both Saiyans and the Tuffles with it.

"Warning. Water breach!" Got repeated over and over.

They were swept around thirty meters away, but since Garagus was so close to the impact, he was hit the hardest.
Rhuba found Garagus struggling to rise out of the fast-moving water and grabbed his hand to pull him up next to her.

"What now?" She asked, shivering in the cold water as the hall slowly began to fill up.

Garagus saw what looked like another set of those double doors they just got swept through. It was worth a shot.
Punching a hole to get a purchase, Garagus pulled the two doors separate and once again nearly got swept down a dark elevator shaft as all the water began pouring off the edge like a waterfall.
Rhuba managed to grab his wrist before he lost his balance, but it wasn't enough to stop him falling. She had to hold onto him and a door handle as they fought against the current to steady themselves.
Once the initial fright of dropping had passed, Garagus steadied himself in the air before pulling Rhuba into his arms so he could fly them both back through the doors and back the where they were.

"What the fuck is this place?" Rhuba demanded as she and Garagus regrouped near the walls to try and think of an escape. The water level on their floor was still rising, albeit slower with the lift open. But the water was still coming faster than it was going down.
"Do you think we could get out that way?" Rhuba asked, nodding to the elevator shaft.

Garagus didn't like the looks or the sounds coming from there, but he left Rhuba behind to flight the water and have a look.
If he slips, he can always flay back up again. As far as he could see, it was an endless void of darkness going up and down.
"No, there's no way out that way." He called as he came back.

"So what do we do?" The water was already up to their waists and still rising.

Garagus looked down the hall where he blasted the ceiling. They were swept much further than he thought.
"Come with me." Garagus grabbed Rhuba's hand and pulled her through the water.

With every step, her footing would lose more and more. "I can't go that way-!" Rhuba's voice was cut off when she fell below the current. Garagus hoisted her closer to keep her up.

"Yes you can!" Garagus jumped out the of water with her arms.

Rhuba clung to him tightly as he flew against the current to get to the source of the water. "You're not going to fly through that!?" Rhuba gasped, hoping he wasn't that crazy.

He took the last moment to properly look at her. If this fails, they probably won't have time to find another escape before the water level takes them completely. If it works, for all they know they're at the bottom of a vast lake, or even an ocean.
"I'm sorry. I… I don't have anything else."

Despite him trying to look brave, Rhuba could hear the panic in his voice and she knew this could be the last minute of their lives if it doesn't work.
"Garagus…" She jumped into him, wrapping her legs around him and held on around the back of his neck.

Holding her just as tight, Garagus looked up towards the water. If he lets the water rise all the way, it'll be easier to get through. But they'll have less time to hold their breaths.
"Take a deep breath Rhuba." He told her, placing a protective hand behind her head as he focused on what he hand to do. "On three, one… two… Three!"

The pair took their finals gasps before being battered to a pulp under the water. It was freezing and felt like being buried under thousands of falling rocks.
But soon their bodies were surrounded by water. Garagus had his eyes shut tight, and felt Rhuba's face pressing harder into his neck as their chests started to burn from lack of oxygen as they made their way to the surface, that felt ever distant with every passing second.

Then suddenly, hitting them with as much shock as when the water first broke through, they shot free and felt the water pour from them as they soared up through the orange sky.

The first few breaths they shared were difficult, but freeing all the same.
"We got out…" Garagus almost didn't believe it.

The pair of them looked towards the river and could see the bubbles still foaming from where they just emerged from. "Garagus look." Rhuba pointed out the rest of the city.

Since the war began, neither of them had been near a Tuffle civilisation. This was the first time they'd seen the deviation the Saiyans had brought in their fight.
Once tall buildings lay in crumbling ruin across several housing blocks. Rubble and derbies from a past explosion and the streets were scorched and littered with crashed ships, brought down by Saiyans when they attacked.

In the quiet ambience, the continued sounds of alarm blow in the underground base still made their way out. Before anyone came looking for the two of them, Garagus lifted Rhuba higher against him to fly away.

They flew in silence.
Drowning is such a horrible way to go, but Rhuba trusted Garagus to bring her out, and he didn't let her down.
Thinking back to how she felt in the rising water, the idea of dying miles from home in a Tuffle base, and knowing how Cressin would never know what happened to them. It was too horrible to think about.
But Rhuba looked up to Garagus, Thinking about everything that's happened in her life since meeting him, and feeling not a single regret. But he was silent, determined, and focused as he looked ahead.
Truly the focus and determination of a proud Alpha protecting his woman, Rhuba thought as she held tighter to him.

In reality.
When the Tuffles took away their pelts, he and Rhuba were dressed in paper-thin fabrics which only served to protect their modesty, but those, of course, got soaking wet during their escape. And knowing that Rhuba's mother would surely be waiting for them at the den, Garagus had to think of literally Anything else other than Rhuba's wet body pressed against his for the remainder of the flight.
Or else the repulsed glare of disapproval will surely be waiting for him.

Author's note: Fun fact. When writing my original draft for Surviving Saiyans years ago, I had reached something like, Chapter 20+. I was in the Freeza saga in regards to the timeline. Buuuut, I had an idea about the Saiyan Tuffle war that I wanted to explore. For it to work through, due to character's ages not matching up, I had to rewrite EVERYTHING!
So with all the new content to account for years that didn't need exploring, it'll be a while before we reach where I was.

Author's Rant: Also. How did the Tuffles lose? In the Anime, King Kai implied that the Tuffles are technologically superior to the Saiyans, like modern or future Earth vs literal cavemen.
Yes the Saiyans are stronger, but How? Isn't it somewhat implied their base strength comes from living under 10x Earth Gravity? Well the Tuffles are living under that too, plus they have guns. Even if the Saiyans are stronger, surly it wouldn't be by much? Like an Spartan Warrior in his prime versus a modern day infantry man. He may be body of a Greek god but, the other guy as a machine gun, so... you lose.