I wish I owned DBZ, but I don't. I own DVD's and tapes, but it just isn't the same. I also don't own the right to Starcraft or any of the music pieces you see selected, just copies of merchandise, such a shame. The artists that created them are geniuses and we all must bow to them.
Chapter 18: Disrupted Control
Vegeta's orders to us were pretty simple, stay on the ground with the Protoss unless they all got killed. Of course he didn't mention that little tidbit to them, but he figured it would lessen the risk of accidentally starting a war with them too. Everyone divided off in according with the Protoss divisions, with the other Saiyans going with the larger attack forces, something I really didn't like. Tora and I were in a group of four hundred Zealots in the southern area of the main continent, with seventy of the large dragoons coming up behind us with a few other machines of war called Reavers. They were basically like tanks as ran over small stuff and fired off big shots. We had marched a good ways from the southern encampment, probably about twenty miles, before I sensed anything other than Protoss and Saiyan. Unlocking my Psi proved wonders in detecting the Protoss, I even picked up their cloaked vessels in the air, but I wasn't sure how I was going to sense the Zerg at first. I found that the feeling of Zerg was like that of a magnet, and they were the metal coming towards us. Kind of strange really, more like a pulling feeling coming from them, only they were drawn to us in this case. I still detected some of that scattered energy with them, but not quite as intense. The incredibly hostile feeling though was ever present, more so than anything else I was familiar with outside of Vegeta getting pissed off. We didn't get to any creep land before the Zerg came in. Fortunately we had plenty of warning other than my senses, and the Protoss had scouted very well and had us warned a good ten minutes before the Zerg arrived. But when they did I was a bit surprised to see only a few little Zerglings running about on the ground. They didn't even make it to the Zealot line before the Dragoons had shot them down. Once they were dead, the Protoss signaled they hadn't picked anymore up. We kept moving on foot, though I had a nagging feeling that I wanted to fly. We reached strangely a clear area, the dead lands began around this area, but the field we were in was clear. Zerg signals were all over the place, but the Protoss technology was not detecting them. I glanced over at the senior Templar in charge of his troops, he looked about as confused as he could get. I ran over to him as the rest of the troops piled in.
"Hey, are your scanners picking anything up here?" I asked.
"Negative, but we are receiving some strange readings in this area. We should continue forward with caution," he suggested. I nodded, but I didn't have as much confidence about it.
"Hey Tora, are you getting that scattered feeling around this area?" I asked through the scouter.
"Yeah, a lot of it. Thought for sure you would of said something by now kid!"
"Sorry, my senses are picking them up differently now. You don't suppose.." I hit realization quickly. I jumped into the air and fired a small ki blast into the ground about thirty feet in front of the marching Zealots. Right away I heard all the psi blades turn on since they weren't ready for it, then I heard countless chatter about dumb kids getting antsy. But the ki blast hit the ground and struck something that popped out right away, some kind of creature's leg.
"They are burrowed again!" I shouted, though the message didn't need to be passed. Right away all of the dragoon's fired at the creature's leg, and the creature revealed itself fully. I simply could not describe this Zerg, except it resembled a Hydra, at least with the head and talons. But it was larger, hunched over on the ground, and seemed to have many tentacles on its back that looked like they could extend outward pretty easy.
"What the hell is that thing kid?" Tora asked, gliding up next to me.
"No clue," I said, stunned. The Protoss firing squad killed the new Zerg type pretty quick.
"Danger has passed, let's continue," the Templar announced, a message that came to my scouter because we put ours on the same frequency as their unique communication system.
"Danger hasn't passed, I still sense a lot of Zerg here!" I warned.
"Perhaps child you are simply experiencing anxiety. You should do your best to ignore it. Believe me, we Protoss always have that before a big battle!" the Templar said, ignoring me. I growled, but kept it down, maybe he was right.
"Hey kid, what's that down there?" Tora asked, pointing something out next to the trees. I gazed down just as a Zealot passed by what he was speaking of. Something was sticking out of the ground, barely, but there was some dirt moving next to it.
"Something is under the ground there too, it looks like some sort of thorn," I noted, then saw that it was starting to emerge about three feet above the surface, and it moved very fast towards the Protoss.
"Look out!" I shouted. Then all hell broke loose. From various places under the field, the same brown thorn like spikes popped up and moved all over the place, attacking the Protoss. It had to be more of those burrowed Hydras, whatever they were, and if each had one of those long tentacle with thorns all over... Ah hell, this ain't gonna be good. Since the tentacles were coming from all over the place under the soldier's feet, I couldn't pinpoint any of their origins. The soldiers got cut up quick; they couldn't even attack back because the tentacles were gone by the time they reacted. In barely two minutes, the battle was over. Dead Protoss warrior lay all over the place, and a few of the war machines blew up. We hadn't fired one shot off so not to kill the wrong people.
"This isn't good," Tora noted.
"No shit! Damn arrogant dickheads should have listened to me," I said, scanning for any underground movement, seeing none.
"Man they're just sitting there waiting for us to land," he whined slightly, firing a ki blast at the ground. When it hit, a whole lot of tentacles popped up and swung towards the impact, and a few of them crossed each other, producing an interesting shriek of pain. Tora and I looked at each other and grinned. Then we fired countless ki blasts all around the ground, impacting every inch of the surface. Like before, the brown tentacles popped up all over the place, and the shrieks of pain got louder and more frequent when we hit a few of them. I noticed that the feeling of Zerg didn't decrease at all, meaning there were either a lot of them, or none had died.
"Damn, we can't kill them all if they're under ground and we can't pinpoint them. Unless we use a huge blast, but we risk blowing the planet up if we push too hard, I wonder," Tora thought that one over.
"I got an idea Tora, these things like Psi right? I'll just release mine and float close to the ground. If they pop up to get me, you blast em!" I suggested.
"Good idea kid, just don't get to close!" Tora warned. I nodded, using my ki to call up my Psi power. Tora hadn't seen this yet, so he obviously did a double take. He shook it off quickly and went Super Saiyan, staying at level one. I dropped toward the ground, stopping about ten feet up or so, and waited. Nothing happened, so I drifted a little closer, to no avail.
"Damnit, what do we have to do to get them to come out?" Tora shouted down. I suddenly had an idea, and using one hand I called up my Psi Sword. After making sure I had a firm hold on it, I used my other hand to fire a ki blast directly ahead of me. Five different tentacles popped up in front of me. Using my speed, I raced in and sliced them all apart as they attacked the impact spot. I rose back up to observe the reaction. Pieces of brown tentacle lay here and there, but after a small cry of pain, nothing else was heard. I growled in frustration, making my energy rise a bit more.
"DAMN YOU ZERG BASTARDS, GET OUT HERE!" I shouted. I didn't expect a reaction, but I got one. All of a sudden there were at least forty to fifty of the large hydra like creatures on the ground, shaking off the dirt from being burrowed. My jaw managed to find more than enough room to let a swarm of bees come in. Tora didn't waste any time, and rained down ki blasts around me, striking the creatures. I phased out of the area, and back up to him, deactivating my sword and joining Tora in the blast fest. The Zerg cried and hissed as they were struck, dying quickly. And just like the Protoss had been slaughtered quickly, we had wiped out the Zerg squad.
"Well that was different," Tora said as he examined one of the burrowed Zerg we had killed. The thing was just as big as a regular Hydra, except hunched over it seemed more massive.
"Something I don't get though," I said.
"What?" he asked.
"I yelled at them and they all came out. Last time I checked the enemy doesn't do what you say, they left themselves wide open," I said, bewildered to say the least.
"That was a little strange, but these are Zerg, they're pretty mindless. Probably take whatever order they get and go with that, we better inform the camp what happened here!" he said, pressing the button on the scouter.
-
"So they just emerged after you shouted at them, that is not normal Zerg activity. However the Overmind and its Cerebrates are known to emit a similar energy signal to your own from time to time. Perhaps your energy disrupted their control. We shall investigate this later," Fenix said after we met up with his group. They were just to the north with Gohan and Broly, preparing to attack a large Zerg base there. According to their scouting reports, the large contingent of Zerg troops had been drawn to the north, where Goku, Vegeta, Bardock and Shugesh were ripping apart defenses before the Protoss troops came through and mopped up the leftovers.
"Anything strange with you Gohan?" I asked.
"Not really, other than the fact that the Zerg are feeling different now," he said, confused.
"Same here, I'm kind of surprised they didn't come right after me like usual, but then again, those things looked pretty grounded," I said, glancing over at Fenix.
"We may need to reconfigure our sensors to pick up these burrowed attackers, we've never encountered them either," he said, nodding to a Templar who rushed off to transmit that message back to base.
"Well if you four are ready, we are just awaiting signal from Executor Tassadar to continue onward and destroy the Zerg base about ten miles in that direction," Fenix pointed to the east. About fifteen more minutes went by before we got that signal, and we headed out on foot, though there were some air ships above us to provide support.
Interlude 18.1- Plans unfolding-
Aldaris grinned even more from his quarters. Though he felt very slight sorrow for the lost Protoss warriors, his beacon of light shined right back at him from the battle. He had been watching the feed from one of his cloaked observers as it replayed the short battle between their forces and the Zerg, and then the Saiyans against the Zerg. The Saiyans good intentions had just helped him win over the Conclave to his favor without even knowing it. The young Saiyan's powers had somehow called the Zerg out of their hiding spot and with a little editing, he could easily make it seem that the Saiyans were on the side of the Zerg. It was too perfect to pass up. He immediately set about editing the feed, then headed for the communication chamber. He was very fortunate to find that the council was already in meeting back on Auir, and awaited his transmission. After he sent the feed, he managed to see several faces of anger and disgust. Somehow he kept a straight face and kept a fake frown. Chancellor Zorbon eventually took up the whole screen with his face.
"Aldaris, I have shared all of the information you have sent me with the council. I will ask this once, is there any false information in this? Is everything you've sent me true?"
"Yes, of course Chancellor," he lied.
"We will discuss this and contact you in one standard hour with our decision. If anything else prudent occurs, please send it to us immediately!" Zorbon said sharply, cutting the feed. Aldaris's grin got even wider once the transmission had ended. He grabbed a remote transmitter and exited, heading straight for the science labs. His personal scientist was there, working on many devices that the Judicator had ordered.
"These are the ki restriction devices then?" Aldaris asked, looking at the bracelet-like hunk of metal.
"Yes Judicator, these will prevent any ki from being used by whoever is wearing it. And it is nearly indestructible as long as there is no outside energy surges, that is its one weakness," he said.
"That won't be a problem, is the larger ki disruptor ready?"
"Yes, but we only have one charge, and it only lasts for five minutes in a radius of five hundred meters. It will disable all ki outside normal parameters in that area for that amount of time. Any attempt to gather it will not succeed, but they would all have to be in the area for it to work on all of them! It could take up to an hour to build up the charge since we have not tested it yet!"
"That won't be a problem either, just make sure my devices are ready by the end of the day! And have some extras made. There are some more of these fighters back at their home base in the west, but all of them are much weaker than the ones here. Capturing them will not be a problem either," Aldaris said, satisfied.
"Understood Judicator," the scientist bowed before continuing his duties.
"Croton, this will get you a promotion, I promise you that!" Aldaris claimed. The scientist looked quite thrilled to know that.
-
Kibito Kai was busily messing with his fishing pole, trying to catch a big one for dinner. Old Kai had already given up trying to catch one and had resorted to reading his comics. He was enjoying a classic comic about a character known as Green Lantern before a sudden image flashed into his head. Being totally unprepared for it, he cried out in pain and fell backwards. Kibito was up in a flash and ran over to his elder, sitting him back up and checking for any injuries.
"Elder, are you hurt, what happened?"
"I was hit with a sudden image of the future, but I couldn't hold it long enough to know exactly what it was and when it's going to occur. Let me concentrate and see if I can pick it up again!" Old Kai grumbled as he sat up and refocused his thoughts. He found what he had seen quickly and replayed it in his mind.
"Something awful is about to happen down on the mortal plane, something we weren't prepared for. However I cannot pinpoint the source, nor the event. The vision barely lasted a second, not long enough for me to determine what it was!"
"Should we warn Goku and the others?" Kibito asked.
"Warn them of what, that we're seeing things? That wouldn't do any good! Until we have details we can only watch and wait! Besides, we should not be interfering with what is already going on, that may not help our friends on Earth. I only hope that they can pull through this tragedy that is going to occur, I fear that the powers we have unleashed may indirectly cause the destruction of that planet!"
"I see, should I at least inform King Yemma or North Kai? Perhaps they can provide insight on this?" Kibito asked.
"That would normally be a good idea, however we both know of North Kai's tendency to try to prevent things from happening. Since we do not know the outcome, we should wait. Interfering may mess it all up," Old kai said, returning to his comics. Kibito glanced over at the crystal ball before returning to his fishing, wondering what exactly the old man had seen.