Krillin flew with speed he thought he hadn't in him, the ground nothing more than a blur beneath his figure. He fought down the sense of dread that filled his gut and flew, knowing nothing more than speed. He had to get there – he had to make a difference!

            Eyes no more than slits, the bald monk and friend of Goku flew forward; it was all he could do…

~*~*~

            Gohan landed softly in the black crater where his daddy lay, facedown and sprawled on the dirt. The boy wiped his eyes of their tears and sniveled, reaching out and prodding his father's ribs with a toe. He still felt something in his daddy – Goku wasn't dead… yet; the boy looked up at the growing orb of doom that flew down at him. Only a few seconds remained, the boy knew, and he wanted to spend it with his daddy.

            "Dad… please get up…" Gohan cried, falling down to cling at his father's neck. The boy clenched the tightly onto Goku's collarbone, burying his small face into his daddy's dusty back. "Please…"

            Goku felt sadness, his son… frowning, the man coughed and came out of the darkness, lifting his head and planting it on its side, offering a weak smile to his boy. Hadn't he…? No, Goku coughed, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth; he had only delayed his destruction, and now had nothing left to battle it. And Gohan, it appeared, no longer had any willpower as well.

            "Hey kiddo…" Goku smiled, trying to offer the boy some sort of solace. Gohan continued to cling tightly to his father's neck, sobbing.

            "I failed, daddy, I failed! I let the bad man get away." Gohan cried, his voice muffled in Goku's gi. The boy's father frowned, trying to hold himself together, if only for his son's sake.

            'Well, here I come again, King Yemna…' he thought sarcastically, slowly forcing out his hand to catch Gohan's face, lifting it level with his own.

            "You didn't fail anyone Gohan…" Goku crooked a smile, his eyes as glittering with tears as his boy's. Gohan was too young to face the burden Goku had placed on him; too young to face death, his own or at his own hands.

            Goku rubbed away one of Gohan's stray tears and stared his son in the face, summoning strength to pull the boy into a hug.

            "If anything, you made me very proud…"

~*~*~

            A purple sun glowed overhead, an asteroid on collision course with the last defenders of Earth… the last defenders save one – Krillin. The man groaned with effort in his flight, his eyes catching Goku and Gohan in the epicenter of a wide and deep crater, his body twisting to carry him there.

            For just a moment, impending doom mattered not nearly as much as Krillin's saving presence. It was so simple, he cursed inwardly, the key to their victory – at least against this orb of vicious violet. Krillin's face furrowed with concentration, his body thudding as he brought himself to land beside the father-son pair, his heart thudding louder than his landing.

            "Goku! Get up!" Krillin gasped, grabbing the man from his son and throwing him onto his back.

            "Eh… Krillin?" Goku blinked, the bright purple light above too much for his weak, watery eyes. 'Where did you come from?' the Saiyan asked, though his lungs had no air to demand it aloud.

            "Goku, you baka! Where is it?"

            Krillin was patting Goku down furiously, checking his pockets, the folds in his gi. Gohan swallowed his tears and watched through confused eyes. What was Krillin looking for?

            "What? Where is what?" Goku muttered, clenching his eyes against the purple light whose source was now only ten meters above, eight meters above, casting a stinging heat upon the trio.

            "This!" Krillin yelped, pulling out a small green fragment. Krillin had always considered his best friend Goku to be a big goof, but never before had the short man thought that his friend would completely forget something as vital as this. With the orb above less than four meters and counting, Krillin shoved the half-Senzu into Goku's mouth, cutting off any dazed response and literally grabbing the Saiyan's jaw and working it for him.

            Krillin leapt back and spread his legs, looking up at the orb above him. "Hurry up Goku, I'll hold it off!" he yelled over the increasing hum of the oracle of death above. The man who shared Goku's original martial arts instructor gathered his palms at his side, hoping against hope that whatever he had done would save them all.

            Goku swallowed the Senzu bean as his son looked at him with fright and confusion; in an instant Goku felt his veins relight with life, his body reignite with fire. His ki surged, and with a determined look on his face, Goku flipped to his feet and slid into his friend's similar stance, nodding at Krillin in understanding.

            Gohan gasped, confused but realizing the urgency of the moment; shaking his head free of the sorrows shared but moments before, the boy crouched down and brought his hands to his forehead, gathering his ki in await.

            "Kamehame…" Goku and Krillin yelled, blue light flickering in the 3-foot expanse between their heads and the ki above…

"Masenko…"
            This was it, Krillin snarled, throwing his hands out in unison with his two amigos, adding what little flame he had to the fire and willing this plot to provide a winning end…

"Ha!"

~*~*~

            Vegeta sat in his space pod, the hatch yet open to the arid desert air that lay out about him; the Saiyan was in no hurry, planet-destruction or not. Smiling to himself, the man tapped the mainframe controls of his transit vehicle, setting a temporary target of 1 parsec from the wretched planet he would be departing from.

            "A pity, really; that brat might have proven a useful aide," he muttered, typing in the access code to Nappa's abandoned space pod and setting its automatic drive to join his in orbit of the planet.

            Vegeta looked out at the brilliant purple light that hid just beyond a range of collapsing stone pillars and increased the smile he wore on his face; it was always magnificent to watch, the destruction of a planet, the extinction of a species. And as he entered orbit, the prince could look forward to the chilling afterglow of the planet's underlying core-structure exploding, bringing that extinction about… and the foreboding feeling that accompanied the knowledge that he, Vegeta, had just killed an entire planet's sentience…

            Vegeta frowned; never before had he thought about it, but the prospect of the planet that had reared Kakarot exploding and taking its populace with it… for some odd reason, the Saiyan prince couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like. He had always felt a sense of dread, of wrong at previous genocides, but easily had admonished it. Yet now, with the skill he had learned from these beings to sense things more clearly through his ki…

            Vegeta shook off the sudden pensive and put back his winning smile, though it held a falter under it.

            "Stop it Vegeta, you're growing soft." He snarled, punching the launch button for his pod. Any minute now it would be all over, and he wouldn't have to ponder it anymore.

            His pod closed tightly, its repulsors humming to life; the prince braced himself for the initial impact of the explosion that should be occurring – should be occurring right that moment.

            Something was wrong; glancing out the small hole at the Earth sky, Vegeta felt a familiar eye-twitch overcome him.

            "Damnit!" he snarled, overriding the launch sequence and feeling the pod drop back to the earth with a thud; resisting the urge to kick open his transportation's door, Vegeta felt his eye continue to twitch in irritation as he held himself back, though his ki began to flame under his skin. Those ingrate, low-level infidels!

            The pod had no more than hissed open when Vegeta found himself flying back toward the battle scene, the image of one thinning beam of blue light running perpendicular to the ground splitting into three smaller beams and then nothing very clear in his sight, his attack leaving the planet's orbit.

            "How?" he cursed, the crater ahead racing toward him, his thoughts racing within him. Images of the fight ran in him, his mind trying to find a flaw, any flaw to blame Kakarot's success – the bean!

            "Here, have this." Vegeta suddenly recalled, his fists balled tightly, his teeth clenched to a breaking point. "It's a Senzu bean, it'll restore your strength."

            "Curse you, Kakarot! Have you no Saiyan pride?" Vegeta arced his flight to bring down as tough a landing as possible, a second part of his brain already skillfully running through what techniques or tactics he knew that would bring about an end to that damned low-level, whose power level was surely rising now after being so near to death. An image of both Kakarot and his son flickered in the prince's quick-witted mind, both barren of the mark of Saiyan ancestry…

            'Of course he has no Saiyan pride – he has the instinct of a Saiyan, or any other species, to survive.' Vegeta managed a grin at the thought despite himself. He had only one way to surely defeat these Earthlings, he bitterly resolved, preparing himself – and it would not be pretty…

~*~*~

            Goku had barely a millisecond to rejoice with his friends at this unexpected victory, the purple orb becoming nothing more than a star in the afternoon sky, when his gut panged, a flash in his mind's eye as all three of them spun about to regard an incoming projectile they knew now as Vegeta.

            "Aww, man!" Krillin groaned, rolling his eyes and flexing. "Does this guy ever give up?"

            Goku shook his head, though the motion was small – the father stood tall beside his son, who had been thrown into a whirlwind of emotions, thoughts and responsibilities that no other 5 year-old had experienced before. Goku had no time to regret this though, nor to marvel as his fully restored power level; a half of a Senzu bean should have only restored half of his strength, yet instead Goku felt himself at what he had just considered his full; until the man probed his potential even further, and found it vastly improved, granting him an inner shock.

            Vegeta slammed into the earth at the edge of the expansive crater he had created earlier with his ill-fated attack. The Saiyan prince did not look pleased.

            "Well, Kakarot, it seems you have managed to prove yourself more of a hassle than I would have expected." The man in Saiyan armor spat, not even bothering to fold his arms or smile cockily; rather, the prince went into an immediate battle stance. "It seems that I actually underestimated you and your gaggle of friends."

            Vegeta brought up his right hand, which began to glow.

            "But no more!" he laughed; Gohan stood tense beside his father, his mind running back into automatic battle mode, his youthful ki flaring up, as did Krillin's; the pair did not know what to expect this time, though the two knew that they would not be so lucky in the future. There were no more Senzu beans, no more trump cards in their possession.

            Goku stared at Vegeta, fixated on his impossible foe; even with his restored strength, he had an sick feeling that he no longer stood any real chance against this alien invader… The man looked down at his son and best friend, who were once again ready to give their all; Goku felt a stirring of pride in his heart, and flared his own mighty ki, watching Vegeta rear back his right hand and then whip it into the sky.

            "Prepare to witness the full might of a true Saiyan warrior!"