Outlanders

Chapter 50: Termination

A/N: I know, late chapter :(. Sickness has foiled me once more.


The change in the air pressure around Tien tipped him off to the attack before it came; a punch that cut through the dust bricked into Tien's right forearm. Bez's face followed soon after it, and he looked surprised that his attack did not land. Tien shifted his weight and side-stepped, swinging up his left leg into Bez's side and launching the purple alien back through the smoke.

Tien's senses weren't quite quick enough the second time- a knee crunched into the small of his back and knocked him to the ground. He rolled out of a plunging stomp and hopped up behind the assailant, delivering a quick series of jabs that sent his opponent reeling. Tien held off pursuing at the last second- he realized something-

It was clear that these guys were weaker than them- not by a lot, but enough to be significant. He would have to keep track of them-

His scouter beeped and exploded into a million pieces on the side of his face as a thin beam of purple energy drilled into the side of his head, causing his vision to swim and his world to flip. Two more strikes pushed through his disoriented block and knocked him onto his back wheezing.

Out of one clear-visioned eye he spotted two of the purple aliens standing over him. One farther away- Bez, Tien thought- began to charge him- though for what reason, Tien couldn't say, because the two nearest to him looked like they were about ready to finish him-

And then just like that, the two aliens lording over him were gone and Tien was back up on his feet, catching another blow on his block.

0o0o0

Holding each of the aliens' heads in one hand, Yamcha put on a burst of speed and wrenched them off the ground. He angled himself upwards against the struggling of his two captives and shot up straight into the sky like a rocket. About a hundred feet up, he abruptly spun and threw one of the aliens higher up into the sky, and in the same movement, wrapped his other free arm around the other alien's chest like a vise.

'Hyaaaah!' Yamcha used another chunk of his energy and accelerated faster, keeping his captive snug against his body as they both ascended further into the sky. The previously thrown alien was still spinning when Yamcha crashed into him, using the alien he held as a literal battering ram and letting him go at the moment of contact. Both of the aliens got mixed up with each other and hurtled even higher into the air.

Tangled together, they were an easy target. Just how I planned it. Yamcha clenched and rolled his body, pulling on the largest chunk of his energy so far. Veins bulging within his blue-white aura, he cupped his hands at his side and spooled his power into a single blue point in the middle of the space between his palms. It was old hat by this point- it had taken him no more than a few seconds.

'KAMEHAMEHA!' Yamcha yelled, thrusting his body upwards with the attack and releasing a massive wave of blue energy. From what he could tell the two aliens were as disoriented as ever, each one just now getting a grip on where they were-

And the blast crashed against only one of them, as the other had disentangled himself at the last minute and had frantically flown away- but flown away far enough to escape the blast radius. The other alien, having taken the blast head-on, was consumed entirely and was ripped apart by the raw energy of the attack.

Not the best. Huffing, Yamcha realized that after spending so much energy in such a short amount of time, he far more equal to the one remaining than he would have liked. He's on par now, for sure-

His thoughts didn't get any further as a blow crashed into his chest and knocked him into a trajectory back towards the ground.

0o0o0

Fists crashed against fists, knees against knees, and Bez matched Tien blow-for-blow, inch-by-inch, as the two of them slammed and crashed against each other. Sweat trickled down his cheeks, mixing with the thin runnels of blood spooling out of the corners of his mouth, and formed into a single light red paste that adhered to Tien's lower face like glue. He used one hand to wipe it away, and in the next instant, that hand caught an elbow aimed straight at his face.

Through the haze, Bez's cruel face arranged itself before Tien. 'Perhaps Nappa was right about you,' the purple alien taunted through a series of grunts. 'You're not like the other new ones; no, not at all…'

Tien tightened his grip on Bez's elbow. 'Shut up!' He planted his feet into the ground and with a great heave, threw his weight down and behind, pulling Bez's body over him in a clumsy arc. Bez's free arm shot up to Tien's head and was caught, entrapping their limbs together as they both crashed down to the ground on their backs. On the recovery, Bez moved a second faster than Tien and delivered a heavy forward kick to Tien's abdomen, winding the human and pushing him back several feet.

Bez swam through Tien's vision. 'You know, at first, your Saiyan keepers had well and truly scared me off.' Tien shook of his disorientation and side-stepped, narrowly putting himself out of range of a low kick. 'Grunts like me don't live long unless they learn not to mess with the monkeys or Frieza's elites.'

Tien dodged again, pulling his right side away from a hook-punch, and rushed Bez with a series of chops. Bez deflected the first few and caught the last, dug his soles into the ground, and caught Tien's full weight with both arms. Sinews stretched and muscles bulged, and each fighter pressed against the other with enough force to stake their feet into the loose dirt and whip their auras into a frenzy. White and light purple, far lighter than Bez's skin, intermingled and billowed with devastating results, flattening the scattered plant life for several feet around to the ground. Only solid-looking trees held fast against the storm.

It was quiet in the center. Bez, undoubtedly, heard the words as soon as they had slid out from between Tien's lips.

'Solar flare.'

The space around them was consumed with enough light to put a supernova to shame. Tien held his eyes shut for a second, and upon opening them, saw Bez's face contorting in an ugly squiggly line, water dribbling out of the corners of his eyes from the sheer visual pain of it all. He heard speech tumble out of the alien's mouth in gibbering, sad chunks.

Tien was unmoved. In one motion, he released his grip from Bez- his opponent was now backpedaling, acting on evolutionary instinct and desperately trying to compress himself into a ball- gripped the alien's right arm just below the elbow, and levered his hands in opposite directions. The bone, or whatever analog existed within Bez, snapped as easily as a flimsy wooden stick.

The babbling turned into the whimpers, and Bez collapsed into a pitiful mess on the ground. Tien left him like this, left him to stew in his own misery for a brief time, and then pointedly placed his boot on Bez's chest. 'I'm curious about what you said before,' Tien said in a slow manner in an effort to disguise his breathlessness. 'You're the second person to mention someone named Frieza to me.' Tien narrowed his eyes. 'Who is he?'

Bez wheezed, and tried to roll himself out from under Tiens' feet, but he was far too weak and debilitated to do so. 'He's… the gods-damned emperor, king, dictator… whatever you want to call him, he's supreme. Might as well be a god…'

'A god? Is he worshipped?'

Another wheeze. 'He has a lot of people far stronger than us working for him. Make your own damn inferrals…'

A frustrated frown spread across Tien's face. The human bent down, gripped Bez by the chipped sides in his armor, and hoisted him into the air in front of him. His arm, bent and mangled at an unnatural angle, dangled uselessly at his side. 'I don't need to make my own inferrals because I have you. And before you die on me, you're going to answer every question I have, so help me-'

'Hah hah… hah…' Bez loosed a thin laugh, high-pitched and weak. 'You… you'll do it then?'

Tien was inclined to the slap the purple alien, and would have done so if he thought that Bez could live through it. 'What are you laughing about?' He asked sharply.

'You come into the fold, you set yourself apart from all the other soldiers, pick out a corner in the mess hall, and erect a wall between you and them… you think you're so noble that you would never kill another person for profit, for a written document… and yet, here you are, on this planet, my feeble body held within your grip.'

'In another time, I was an assassin; I'm under no pretenses as to the cleanliness of my hands,' Tien said firmly. 'And I will do what needs to be done to survive- and that includes killing those who would kill me.'

Bez said nothing for a time, his mouth unnatural still and silent. Tien was about to shake him when he spoke again. 'I don't believe you… prove to me that you're a killer.'

Tien's grip on Bez tightened, but the force was bottled up in his ligaments and flesh- his knuckles bunched and twisted with tension. 'You deserve to die. I'm sure of it.' His voice, though thickened with purpose, warbled off the walls of his own skull. He's a murderer! Betrayer! He's nothing more than a soldier spinning in a homicidal machine-

The thought caught on that last word, and the full weight of his actions, of context, settled on him. He was made this way, like metal ground into a cog-

'Second thoughts?' Bez spoke up, piercing through Tien's thoughts. His voice still sounded brittle. 'It's not so easy when you full history is laid out before you- when you know that you'd finish their bloody work…'

At that moment, Tien's train of thought split down two different paths: one path couldn't help but embrace this person's bloody past, his full crimes laid at his feet and at those of his masters, and his fate adjudicated without any consideration of his own will, while the other path saw a quick end as the justest option, the proper deliverance on a soul that was so demonstrably evil.

He wasn't used to such doubt; neither, apparently, was his body. Before he knew it, his hands slipped from Bez's sides, letting the alien start to crumple to the ground.

Halfway there, Bez landed on his two feet, eyes open, and a searing pain scored itself diagonally across Tien's front. The human gasped from the sheer force of the blow, and with his mind blinded by pain, his body reflexively staggered backward. He had made an embarrassing error -No. A costly one. His own hand slid across his abdomen far too easily, but came back unbloodied. The attack hadn't pierced his armor. It was- he couldn't believe-

A thin beam, similar to the one that had destroyed his scouter, hit his right thigh, forcing Tien to one knee. The pain was much more real now- an involuntary whimper bounded out of his mouth.

'Oh? Was that too much?' Bez said playfully. Tien wrenched his head forward and glimpsed the alien standing, one arm still ruined, but the other raised in a dangerous gesture. 'Sorry- I just meant to even us out a little bit. You took one of my arms out of the fight- in return, I effected a similar handicap on you. Doesn't this feel fair? Just?' Bez didn't bother to conceal what he felt- he was incensed.

'You have… no business… using that word…' Tien managed in between ragged gasps. 'You've never experienced-'

Another beam lanced into Tien, this time piercing his right shoulder. His cry was weaker- he was weaker- than just a few moments before. Bez's continuing ability to fight had done worse than shock Tien; it had caught him off-guard.

'What do you know of justice!' Bez raged, his arm flopping uselessly at his side. 'Justice has no meaning for the weak! Only the strong are able to taste it!' His aura flickered and pulsed around him. 'You and I- we're nothing to the chaos around us! But on this battlefield, I will know the meaning of just!'

Energy gathered in Tien's core; Bez seemed to be too enraged to notice. Tien just needed to buy a few more seconds. Slowly, he lifted his gaze and sought out Bez's eyes. 'You're nothing but a pawn-'

A final beam ripped into Tien- a thick hole was drilled into the center of his chest, burned straight through his armor, and stopped within his flesh. Bez hadn't waited for Tien to finish; he had plowed ahead unaffected.

Too close… Tien gasped, and was flooded by such overwhelming pain that his legs shut down from under him and toppled. Far too close…

With a dumdt, his back hit the ground.

0o0o0

HIs opponent was everywhere, all-at-once, and Yamcha could do nothing but guess and lurch in the right direction to avoid being hit. He wasn't always right, and he increasingly guessed wrong.

Damn it! Yamcha ducked underneath a mid-air sweep, his block just barely taking a glancing hit, and spun, twisting upwards and ramming a punch into the purple alien's lower abdomen. It didn't seem to do much- a blow slammed into his back a split-second later.

He tumbled through the air, all bearings lost, and despite the presence of a wide-open sky around them, he found himself being backed into a hole. The other fighter was just too fast, too quick, and most importantly, too fresh- he couldn't continue taking the blows he'd been taking if his chances to counter-attack were far and few in between. Growling, he righted himself, absorbed a plunging kick against the center of his crossed arm block, and threw out a horizontal wave of energy with one arm. His opponent was forced to back off as a wave of snapping light spilled out across the sky like stars. Yamcha bought himself a precious moment to breathe. If only I could reach- get to him!... Yamcha's eyes widened, and he halted his descension through the sky. The space above him was still tangled with light and frayed energy, bewildering any pair of eyes that might chance to look up. Yamcha carefully tapped into his ki sense.

The moment he did so, a purple-skinned body crashed into him from behind, ricocheting him across the sky. He was slammed once, twice, and hurtling through the air after a third strike, he found the extra bit of energy needed and readied himself. When the purple alien swung into him with a high kick in the next instant, the blow sailed through the air, passing harmlessly through Yamcha's afterimage.

The purple alien only had a second for his face to lock up with surprise before Yamcha reappeared behind him and wrestled him into a headlock. They hung in the air, struggled, and just as the alien's hands were snaking back to work against the human's grip, Yamcha wrenched.

The head between his arms moved in a grotesque manner to his right and filled the air with a chilling snapping sound. The counter-grapple against Yamcha never came- the body went limp underneath him.

Yamcha let out a long sigh, and then let the body go to drop back to the earth. He didn't bother to track its descent- there would be time to do so later, long after the events of today- and instead centered his ki sense on Tien. He located him and Bez together on the ground and close to the edge of the jungle. With an added burst of ki he sped down to the ground near them, though surprisingly, Bez didn't seem to notice his approach.

He understood what was the cause of the alien's distraction when Yamcha was nearly on top of them- Bez lorded over Tien, one foot planted on his armored chest, one hand raised in preparation for delivering the killing blow, and his attention exclusively focused on the body underneath him.

It was as clear an opportunity to act as any Yamcha had seen. Closing the gap between them with lightning-quick speed, he smashed his fist into the back of Bez's head. The purple alien let out a small flutter of air, and then he fell to the ground, unconscious. A sigh Yamcha hadn't known he was holding in hissed from his mouth.

0o0o0

With a groan, Tien let himself be hoisted back up onto his feet. 'Thanks,' he muttered, as he rubbed the spot on his chest where Bez's last bow had hit. The armor was cracked, chipped, and burned, but amazingly, the damage was limited to a circle about six inches in diameter and the puckering, burned skin beneath. There wasn't a doubt in Tien's mind that his armor had saved his life.

He was lucky in a number of ways. Upon further inspection, Tien found that the wounds on his thigh and shoulder were shallow- Bez apparently didn't have enough strength at the end to do any lasting damage.

As engrossed as he was with these revelations, he almost didn't notice that Yamcha had halted menacingly over Bez. Almost. 'Yamcha?' Tien asked. 'What are you doing?'

When Yamcha spoke, his voice was cut clean, sheared of all embellishment. 'What does it look like? I'm finishing him. He's still breathing.'

A great pain blossomed across Tien's chest, and Tien was certain it hadn't originated from one of his injuries. 'Are you sure that's a good idea? He might-'

Yamcha turned on him abruptly, and it became clear why he had twisted so quickly; his face was contorted from barely restrained rage. 'He tried to kill us, take our contract, and leave our bodies to rot on a doomed planet. He's exactly like what you said before- he's a monster!' Yamcha turned back again to Bez's unconscious body, his entire body now shaking. 'We kill him now! We sent a message to every other person who might try to gun for us! We-'

Yamcha's voice cut out as Tien chopped the back of the scarred human's head, halting his tirade and knocking him out cold. Tien quickly gripped Yamcha's body with his other hand and waited. One second. Two. When Tien was confident that Yamcha was unconscious- and not dead- he let the collar of Yamcha's armor slip from his grasp. With a heavy thud, he came to rest on the packed earthen ground not a few feet away from Bez.

Tien only had a few minutes to decide on what he wanted to do- if the planet's armed forces hadn't arrived by now, they would surely be here any second. He imagined that, if they were caught, it would have been better to die to Bez than to live through what awaited them in captivity.

Ultimately, his decision wasn't a difficult one to make. Without wasting any time, Tien threw Yamcha, then Bez over each shoulder and sprinted off as best he could into the forest.

0o0o0

Launch palmed a punch, ducked underneath a spinning elbow, and simply tossed Suno over her shoulder at the first available opportunity. Her mind was prone to wandering whenever she sparred with the redhead fighter; while Suno lacked nothing in enthusiasm, there was a clear power difference between them that, if Launch was being frank, was annoying to train with. She wanted to test her limits against someone closer to her level-

Abruptly, she stood up as straight as a board, her body coming to grips with a shot of energy rushing into her, almost like the feeling of plunging head-first into an ice-cold lake.

-What?-

Suno was neither aware enough nor had the ability to be aware enough to pull back at the last moment; her fist sailed past where she expected a block and clocked Launch on her face, slamming her several feet through the air and to the ground. She had the briefest moment of pride surge through her, the thinnest smile starting to take shape on her face, before her mind caught up with the rest of her and forced her to stiffen. She ran over to Launch's side in the next instant.

'Launch! Launch!' Suno quickly knelt at her sparring partner's side. 'I'm- I'm so sorry! I didn't see!'

Flat on her back, Launch ignored her and stared emptily up to the sky, though she was probing the newly forming bruise on the right side of her head with one hand. 'It's okay,' she replied after appearing to collect her thoughts. 'I got distracted. I got… I don't really know what happened, to be honest.'

Launch saw Chiaotzu run over to her at this point. He must have heard Suno's cries of alarms. 'Launch? What happened?'

'Describe it,' Suno urged her. 'Describe what you can.'

'I... ' But before Launch could put to words the sensation- the sensation that screamed of Tien somehow- she found herself grounded again. There would be time to consider weird and odd events at a later date- at a safer date. Because as long as Tien, Yamcha, and Krillin were gone, she was this planet's strongest defender. And Suno had delivered the first and what should be the last undefended strike on her during this tenure.

The thought of that riled her up. 'Haaagh!' Launch roared, sitting up and moving to clock Suno back in the face. The redhead fighter clumsily hopped back before smirking and tanking a follow-up blow on her block. 'You had me worried there for a moment!' Suno yelled above the renewed clash.

'You're allowed to worry about me when I'm dying!' Launch charged forward, swept Suno's legs out from under her, and then punted her further away with a spinning kick. 'And that's a long way off yet!'

Chiaotzu, who had been at their side when Launch has bizarrely restarted her spar with Suno, remained in the same spot as the two battled off into the distance. '...Alright!' he tried to call after them. 'Glad you're okay!'

0o0o0

Bulma ignored her own discomfort- which, if she was being honest, was something she could use practice in- and slowly followed Planthorr down the hallway's length. It was rare to see people scurrying about on this side of the base, and Bulma's suspicions as to why this was the case were promptly confirmed when Planthorr punched a code into a keypad, and through this, caused a door to slide open. A massive room, filled to the brim with strange machinery, sleek looking metal storage crates, and junk in some places, greeted her.

Planthorr turned to her. 'This is the medical storage room. There are a number of broken healing tanks in there-'

'Healing tanks?'

'As the name implies,' Planthorr noted with a hint of annoyance, 'they heal. People, more precisely.' As he said this, he gestured his hand to a row of odd, oval-looking tubes that were lined up in a row against the right wall of the room. 'I figured that you would best work in an environment like this- isolated, away from prying eyes. Practically no-one ever comes in here; most of this equipment is closer to being scrap than actually working, and very rarely does anyone need to pull items from these crates- this is a small outpost, after all.' His expression raised itself on his face. 'Does this suit you?'

Bulma briefly gave the room a once-over and nodded. 'It'll do fine. So you want me to?...'

'Try and fix-up the healing tanks. We've got a shortage at the moment and it would do us some good to get some more models in use.' Planthorr then rummaged in the pockets of his medical coat for a moment and produced what looked to be a thinly-bound pamphlet. 'This is a rough manual for how the machine works,' he explained, handing it to Bulma. 'Wish I could give you more help, but these are older, out-of-production models, and…'

'I understand. The fewer people who know, the better,' Bulma finished for him. 'I'll get to it.'

Planthorr let her pass into the room, and then stood just beyond the doorway. 'I'll be back later in the day to collect you. Good luck.' A few seconds later, the door was shut and Bulma was alone.

She turned over the manual in her hands. Yeah, later. She placed it down and decided to fully appraise what this room had to offer. Most of it would have interested her if she had been in a different, more curious mindset.

While lumbering through the room's aisles and running her hands over machinery old and dusty, she came across what looked to be some sort of administrative monitor laid out casually on a crate. A quick inspection of the wires feeding out of it made Bulma realize that these wires could neatly connect to a round white console situated a few feet away. The wires were just long enough to connect to the console without having to move either part, and armed with unrealistic hope, she flipped up what looked to be a power switch on the console.

Nothing happened. Figures. Time to do what I do second-best, then; troubleshoot.

It took her some time- she always lost herself in her work, so she wasn't sure exactly how much time had passed- but, eventually, the annoying, obstinate little pieces came together and she heard the click of electricity running through the circuit board. Sighing, she pulled her head out of the console and glimpsed back at the connected screen. A soft green glow heralded her success.

Bulma scurried over without even a second of hesitation. A cursory examination told her that her hunch had been correct; the console was some sort of database or information storage machine. She flicked through its contents, her eyes marching across the screen like soldiers proceeding across a flat field, until she found something especially promising- it seemed that this unit had once been connected to whatever served as space internet- Another thing to look into; what serves as the galactic medium of information exchange?- and had logged a catalog of important logistical information about the PTO from that time. Now, hopefully, this information isn't too out-of-date to be completely worthless…

A few clicks, some drags, and then, by chance, she stumbled upon exactly what she had been looking for.

'What the hell?...'

Bulma could scarcely believe what she was seeing. From her perspective, a single point of view looking down on a 2-D map, the map of the PTO's territory seemed tiny. The program held this position for only a short time, however, and then slowly grew outwards into a 3-D map. A… staggeringly large 3-D map. The PTO wasn't a few systems, or hundreds of stars, or even localized to a single galactic quadrant- it was spread across the entire galaxy. Bulma had to use a hand to physically close her mouth.

She spent some time processing this- it was humbling, and maybe a little terrifying- before remembering why she was examining the map- why she was in this dusty storeroom in the first place. Bulma, scouring her brain for what she knew of the astrological location of the Earth within the galaxy, began looking around the edges of the map. Come on… come on…

It must have taken her half an hour before she realized she was getting nowhere with this method. Examining the galaxy piece-by-piece for one specific star was so grossly inefficient that it made her feel like a lunatic. Bulma had to think and feel like a lunatic scientist.

There must be a way I can winnow the results… hmm… Wait. The PTO takes on contracts- so they must have a system for dividing systems between targets and those that they either own or service. Let's see… After a few minutes of searching, she stumbled across a filter for the map, broken into the classifications of FP, Civilian, LPT, and HPT. She didn't have a clue to what these labels meant, but she had the power of deduction; she figured that Earth wouldn't be listed as Civilian- it was attacked by a homicidal Saiyan, after all, and nor could the planet have been in the FP or HPT categories- those included planets that were far too close to the center of the galaxy to possibly be Earth- so she was left with the LPT filter. Fortune shined on her- there were only 100 LPT planets on the map.

She checked every single one, read every single dossier crammed pack with info on each planet's atmosphere quality, gravitational strength, and the biodiversity of the local biomes, flora, and fauna- and Earth was nowhere to be found. To Bulma's dismay, it looked increasingly true that the database she was working with was just too old-

Bulma's head snapped up from its forlorn position on the console as if pulled by a string. It was a simple task! She just had to reconnect this console to whatever served as space internet!. She probed the back of the console and found a number of promising slots, and through dumb trial and error wire plugging, she eventually found a cable that brought about some sort of update to the console. Then, in a single glorious advance, the screen was filled in with a number of new entries. In anticipation, she pulled out a notepad she had been hiding in her bra.

In the end, it only took her a minute to conclusively find the Earth. She hastily scribbled down this planet's interstellar coordinates relative to Earth- another unfamiliar measurement Bulma would have to contextualize on her own time if she wanted this information to be useful- and stuffed the notepad back into her bra. First step done. I roughly know how much space there is between here and Earth. Figuring out where we need to go from here shouldn't be too hard… She stood, turned off the console, and unplugged the monitor. Now then… she picked up the manual for the healing tanks that, by this point, she must have put down several hours ago. Time to do my actual work...

0o0o0

To Tien, it had only felt like a handful of seconds had passed between falling asleep on the return trip to FP083, their base-slash-prison, and waking up moments from landing. His second trip in the pod had made a few things about the inert state clear, though; it could never disguise the weakness someone felt in their muscles from disuse or the clawing hunger in their stomach from not having eaten in days.

There were some benefits. Upon waking he also found that his injuries, while still painful, had faded into the background of his consciousness. He wasn't sure whether he should credit this to whatever chemicals they pumped into the pods or the natural progression of time.

Mulling over these thoughts took him through the landing process- it was much smoother this time around, and Tien remembered someone telling him that PTO outposts were surrounded by some sort of inertia dampening grid which allowed ships to softly land- and, soon enough, he was crawling out of his pod. The landing pad they had touched down on, like all the other ones, commanded an impressive overlook over the planet's bleached brown vistas and dusty flats. These sights were quickly becoming comforting to Tien, if not familiar.

He was about to start untangling Bez and Yamcha- both unconscious- from each other in their shared pod when Tien heard someone begin to stomp up the stairs to the landing pad. It was the second-to-last person he would have liked to see.

'What the hell are you two doing here!?' Nappa roared, his boots ringing crisply against the metal grating beneath their feet. 'There's no way you two could have purged LPT094 that quickly!

Nappa most likely saw that Tien was visibly injured, but the human fighter drew his attention to the hole in his chest plate all the same. 'We fought. We won, but we were too injured to complete the contract. So we came back here to recuperate.'

'You ran,' Nappa said accusingly.

'We were attacked,' Tien snarled. Even though Nappa could have been as much as a foot taller than him, Tien made sure to keep his head lifted clean off his chest. 'We were outnumbered and unprepared, and we still got ourselves out of there alive.'

'And you think that's your job? To survive?' Nappa barked. 'Have you been listening to a single damn word I've been drilling into your thick skull? Your sole purpose for being here is to purge planets! Completing a contract is more important than your lives!'

'We defended that contract from other PTO soldiers! They tried to steal from us, from you, and they paid with their blood for what they tried to do!'

'And whose fault is that?'

Tien studied Nappa's face. 'What?'

'Whose fault is it that you got attacked by PTO troops?' Nappa said in a dangerous voice. 'You knew not to talk to the other soldiers. You knew,' he repeated murderously. 'So how did it come to be that someone caught wind of your contract?'

Tien felt his own throat tighten up, and consciously moved himself to the left to block Nappa from peering into the second pod. 'I don't know,' Tien lied. 'Perhaps-'

Nappa abruptly stepped closer, grabbed Tien by the front of his armor with his massive hands, and brought his face mere inches from his own. It was horrifying how little power Tien had during this entire sequence of events.

'Listen to me, you little jagoff,' Nappa uttered furiously while spit shot out of his mouth in a mist. 'You may not understand the stakes here, but you do not disobey mine or Vegeta's orders. Any idea why?'

Tien found it hard to speak while locked in the harness-like arrangement he currently inhabited within his armor. He nodded his head "no" in the place of words.

'Because when you fuck up,' Nappa growled, 'that means we fucked up. What you do reflects on us. And if you're running away from missions with your tail between your legs, like a full coward who can't take a few hits and soldier on with the mission, then you've got no place within the PTO; really, then, you have no right to call yourself a warrior.' Nappa sneered, and seemed to be regaining some of the cruel mockery he had evidenced in the other times Tien had interacted with him. 'You're laughable.'

Nappa's face was looming over Tien, repeatedly drawn and tied into the fiercest and more disdainful expressions he had ever seen another sentient being wear, but all Tien could think about was his own anger, his own indignity of having his status of a warrior challenged by someone as brutish and base as the Saiyan before him. Nappa would never understand that what he had done was honorable, merciful. Bez wouldn't understand. Tien doubted that even Yamcha would understand. To have so many people think so little of him, doubt him-

'You're pathetic,' Tien stated in a calm, cool voice, but it was delivered exactly like how he had intended it- the statement came from a place of his mind so far above Nappa and was laced with such undeniable self-expressed preeminence that the affront was impossible to ignore. And Tien would be lying if he said it hadn't felt good to say.

Those two words had an immediate effect; a vein bulged, a mouth turned into a gross mockery of itself, and Tien knew what was coming before it occurred.

'HUAAAGH!' Nappa threw Tien to the ground with such force that Tien's body pushed down into the steel landing pad. Tien felt his armor on his back crack and the thin slivers of metal scratch and, in some places, pierce his armor and scratch him. The entire process was so jarring that Tien had audibly choked when his bones knocked together against the steel, and gagged on a shoot of bile and saliva that splashed against the roof of his mouth.

For a moment the Saiyan, standing over him like a monster beyond the point of control, huffed… and did nothing more. Through what looked to be a concerted effort, the pure rage drained away from Nappa's face. 'Clean up this-' he pointed to the dent surrounding Tien's body, '-and rouse your friend.' Then, without another word, he spun around and stormed off.

Tien was left panting, half-imprinted in the landing pad, to consider the consequences of his actions.

0o0o0

'Breathe. You're not breathing!'

A bamboo stick whacked Krillin on the leg, making him wince and reflexively pull his leg back into the position it was in before. As he did this, he frantically wobbled on his other leg.

'You're also drooping!' King Kai chided him before whacking both of Krillin's arms in rapid succession, forcing them to align in a line perpendicular to the ground again. The human fighter wheezed from the effort. 'Better,' King Kai said somewhat pleased once Krillin had become motionless again.

A few feet away, Piccolo was faring slightly better- key word being slightly. For the moment, that was all that was keeping him from suffering an utter collapse in strength. The gravity on King Kai's planet was crushing, and this exercise maintaining ridiculous poses with arms and legs jutting out in every direction made that fact even more bruisingly relevant. The only thing keeping Piccolo upright at this point was the joy he received every time he saw Krillin be whacked.

Well, that and the mystery surrounding Kevin Woo. The human, currently sat in a lawn chair while reading a magazine (where could have gotten that from? Is there an Otherworld press?), had remained conspicuously silent since their arrival, even though he hadn't left their side for a single minute. What exactly was his purpose here? He hadn't seen Kevin Woo train with King Kai at any point, though Piccolo was sure he had received training in the past from King Kai; strong ki, even when suppressed, had a way of conveying a rough estimate of its own strength if someone knew where to look. This contributed to the mystery- how strong was Kevin Woo, exactly? To not know what Piccolo was aiming for was an insufferable ambiguity.

Eventually, Piccolo's curiosity- and his need to vent- got the better of him.

'What do you do around here?'

'Huh?' Kevin Woo popped his head up from the magazine. 'What'd you say?'

'Why are you here?' Piccolo rephrased.

'Curious, eh?'

Piccolo made a face which said, "Why else would I be asking?"

Kevin Woo grinned and adjusted his shades. 'Silly thing for me to say. Sorry; let me start over. I'm something of an Otherworld enforcer- I go around helping out the Kais and the other denizens with tasks when needed. Sort of like a spiritual handyman.'

'You just said two different things,' Piccolo said sourly. 'And none of it was very descriptive.'

'Let me give an example. Do you remember the big guy behind the desk when you arrived in this realm? Really red, had horns?'

'You mean King Yemma?' Krillin jumped into their conversation, though he regretted doing so immediately as his slight lapse in concentration led to him receiving another rap from King Kai's bamboo stick.

Kevin Woo nodded. 'A little while back he conveyed to King Kai to convey to me that there were some disturbances going on in Hell. Some ruffians, or troublemakers- whatever. You get the idea. So I was tasked to go down there and investigate, knock some heads around and the like.'

'It's that easy?' Piccolo asked skeptically. 'Going between this realm and hell, that is.'

'Well, for someone of my position, sure. I was given the power to traverse the realms to do my job.' Kevin Woo subtly glanced at Krillin. 'Though for those who don't have that power, I imagine it's a lot harder. That's why I had to rescue your friend Krillin here, after all.'

Tension took hold of them for a time, but before Piccolo could growl at Kevin Woo for all he was insinuating, the human fighter chuckled and shook his head. 'You're a goofy person, Piccolo. Did you think no one was going to notice that Krillin disappeared at the exact end of Snake Way? The literal finish line?'

Piccolo was prepared to defend the selfishness of his actions; but he was not prepared to defend their competency. His face went slack, and got stuck in a dumb and embarrassed expression.

'Kevin Woo?' Krillin spoke up once more, this time making sure his pose was stable enough to chance a question. 'If you don't mind me asking… what did you see when you came down to rescue me?'

'Hmm?' Kevin Woo appraised Krillin, then seemed to grasp what was motivating the question. 'Ah. You were confused about what was going down there, right? All the spectral figures and real-and-not-so-real people shuffling back and forth and without any consistency as to where they are, or why they are, and without any logic to their actions?'

'...Yes, that's a good summary of it.'

'The shortened version is that Hell in the afterlife functions as a personalized realm of negative spiritual energy- the energy down there will prompt any individual's worse nightmares to appear real, and, in most respects, be real. Though there are, of course, people who have died and who reside in hell as well, who you may have bumped into while down there. But it's more likely the energy down there was just playing on your mind, created everything you saw from your fears and anxieties, because it meant to scare or hurt you.'

'But there are people down there who are real, right?' Krillin asked quietly. The thought had crossed his mind a few times since being rescued, and he had hoped to attribute every event he experienced while there to a consistent hallucination or some other figment of his imagination. But Kevin Woo's explanation left… questions. Unwanted ones.

'Indeed they are,' Kevin Woo replied. 'It's from them that the negative spiritual energy comes from in the first place. Evil people get subsumed by the negative spiritual energy, and when they finally pass beyond their bodily form, their negative spiritual energy torments the next generation of evil people.'

'It's really quite poetic,' King Kai chimed in from behind Krillin, reminding him to how close he was to another whack.

'You know,' Piccolo spoke up, 'I don't think you actually answered my original question.'

'But I did!' Kevin Woo protested. 'Or, at least, I thought I did.'

'Why are you here,' Piccolo stressed, 'on this planet, specifically.'

'He's on loan,' King Kai said with a suppressed laugh.

'I am not!' Kevin Woo complained.

'Yes, you are,' King Kai said with the smug authority of someone who knew what they were talking about. 'If you weren't, I'd still have my little helpers around here.

'Are you talking about the monkey and the cricket?' Kevin Woo asked hazily.

'The very same.'

Kevin Woo made a face of displeasure. 'No… please don't bring them back.' He brought up his magazine, shielding his face once more. 'A lot of bad memories are tangled up with those two…'

'You do know you'll have to perform their role with them gone, right?' King Kai asked.

'Well, that was the deal, right?'

'What role?' Krillin asked moment before a bamboo stick crashed painfully against his side.

'You're not breathing!'

0o0o0

It hadn't been Nappa's intention to leave the Earthlings to their own thoughts for hours, days, stewing in their own spaces in the base. Another type of being would have done this deliberately; they would have enjoyed leaving their victims hanging on an edge, using their own minds against them while they conjured and imagined every possible punishment awaiting them beyond a single door, but Nappa wasn't of this mind. He was immediate, direct, and straightforward.

So it was for this reason that he couldn't risk seeing them. He couldn't be sure that, if left alone with them, their heads would still be on their shoulders after he was done with them. So he waited, forced himself to wait, at the cost of his own bloodlust and peace of mind. Because there was an order to things, a chain of command, and it would be unbecoming of a general to kill without first being commanded by his Prince. No matter how much Nappa wanted to twist their bones until they cracked, and rip their limbs off one-by-one until they were nothing more than misshapen lumps, he would wait until he was told.

Though he doubted Vegeta's opinion would differ much from his own. That was what had saved him- a recognition, Saiyan to Saiyan, that the Earthlings' worthless time here was up. That death was to be delivered.

And so the hours stretched into days, and the days stretched into a week, and through that time Nappa kept virtually imprisoned in his own room and ate sparingly, shutting himself out from every object in the world that could tempt his better impulses. His impulses to main, kill, destroy- they were useful on a battlefield but miserable to have at all other times. For these he relied upon another to help him, and that other arrived just before he had exhausted the little self-restraint he had left.

Vegeta strode into their private barracks nonplused, the sliding metal doors opening and closing behind him faster than they should have. 'Nappa,' he said in a low voice, 'I want an explanation now.'

Nappa stood, as one prepared to give a summary report, and began addressing Vegeta. 'The two Earthlings returned from LPT083 without completing their mission. They-'

'I have already learned what has happened with the Earthlings, Nappa!' Vegeta lashed out. 'I was told by snickering fools and pompous idiots about what occurred before my most trusted soldier had even approached me! While you were sulking in your chambers like a child, unmanaged gossip has run rampant among the low-levels! Where were you,' he hissed, taking one emphatic step further into the room, 'to quell these heedless lies and regulate our respect! Our Saiyan pride?'

'I-' Nappa verbally stumbled and clamped his teeth down, caging his tongue behind a barrier, and denied himself an opportunity to speak. In a better frame of mind he could have defended himself; but he still felt the blood run through him, the barely restrained rage, and was worried to whom it would be directed to if it came out now.

'Sit, Nappa.'

The Saiyan general hesitated, his hands coiling and tightening around the lips of his armor as if to break it, but in the end he relented and sat himself down. His muscles lost nothing of their clenched, murderous appearance, though.

Vegeta sought to keep his measured rage present, but with Nappa's descent, this too retreated. 'It doesn't matter,' he murmured, soft to the point where Nappa wasn't sure if he was still included in this conversation. 'Those who wagged their tongues are dead and those who might think to speak were taught not to. I see now it was a mistake to leave on the eve of this- this sensitive period- and leave you to your own devices.' Vegeta held his gaze on Nappa, and a whisper passed through his lips. 'Yes, I think I understand well enough.'

'A few things have become apparent to me,' Vegeta continued in a didactic tone. 'One- the Earthling fighters are of no worth to us. They sabotaged themselves, unknowingly or otherwise, and failed to complete what should have been an easy mission. We have no reason to believe that this will not happen again; that they will not flee from another contract when lauded with the slightest bit of pain. They are useless in that regard, and they have proven unwilling to divulge to us the information we seek. The information we have kept them alive for- the truth of Raditz's death.'

'Two- Frieza is breathing down our throats more than usual- either he or his cronies are suspicious of our activities at the moment- rightly so. If the Earthlings were anything but Earthlings, I wouldn't have hesitated to report to the PTO that we had enlisted them. While we were here, so far out on the edges of the PTO's grasp on the galaxy, I had thought that we would be able to keep their existence a secret.'

The tips of Vegeta's fingers then flexed and pulled into his palms. 'But things have changed. I've been informed that Cui is on his way here; evidently, my explanation as to what became of Raditz was unsatisfactory to Frieza's lieutenants. When Cui arrives, he will discover the Earthlings for themselves and then, I suspect, charge us for treason, or something else ridiculous.' Vegeta shivered, and it took a moment for Nappa to recognize what he was seeing; it had been a motion of anger and repugnance. 'As much as I loathe to admit it,' Vegeta resumed, 'I am not confident that I can beat Cui in a fight.'

Then Vegeta's tone and posture shifted to one more open, explorative.'Now I am curious Nappa; what do you make of this?'

Nappa snapped out of a haze, and was unaware that he had been in one. 'I think we're in a rough spot.'

'No; I ask of you what we should do,' Vegeta pressed.

The older Saiyan desperately wished to open himself, like a blocked pipe close to bursting, and divest himself of all the roiling anger speeding through him. 'It's clear the Earthlings are the root of our problems,' he answered gratingly. 'It seems like if we get rid of them, we put ourselves back into a decent position.'

'Perhaps not with Frieza; but I agree with the rest of what you said, though I think we might have different ideas on how to get rid of them,' Vegeta said, his attention fixed to a spot on the floor. 'But something else has been made clear to me; information can be bought without them through other means.'

'What are you getting at, Vegeta?'

Vegeta's eyes were sharp, and through they seemed to sometimes be consumed with peering inwards, they always landed on Nappa at the most efficacious moments. 'I think it is time we paid Earth a visit. Wouldn't you agree?'

Nappa's eyes glossed over. 'So that means?...'

'I tire of our unwilling partners,' Vegeta said. 'They have been nothing but a liability. Before the day is done, we will dispose of them. As for the woman… no, I have a feeling that it would be wise to keep her around for a little while longer…'

Vegeta's expression shifted again, and to the older Saiyan's surprise, the Prince had a smile plastered across his face ear-to-ear. 'But the most important truth that was revealed to me during my meeting with Frieza is this- our time within the PTO is coming to a close, Nappa. Someone within the higher ranks is gunning for our blood, and unless something is done soon, our corpses will do nothing more than mark where we made our last stand. We have to make a move before our enemies do. And I have no doubt in my mind that that woman will help us to do this.'

The details of the plan were explained to Nappa in the ensuing minutes, and after, the old Saiyan general could only grin at what his charge had become.


A/N: Another chapter in the books! THE 50th chapter in the book! Wowie! If I had a good idea for a special chapter, I would be writing that shit! Unfortunately, something like that is still a little ways off! But regardless, here's to another 50!

and here are some power levels

Bez and friends: 1,700 or so

Tien: 2,000

Yamcha: 1,800

So here's my logic; they had to adjust to a planet with roughly 3x the gravity of Earth. Also, at this point, they've been on FP083 for a long while- they've had time to train and prepare for their next mission. We saw Goku make crazy gains with the gravity machine on the way to Namek, and with the gravity on King Kai's planet. I don't imagine it'd be any different for Tien and Yamcha on a smaller scale.

Reviews:

LWexe: I stole Planthorr straight from the DBwiki, so I think he's... not OC? Or at least he was never named within the show, though he's there/ manga.

yasho360: Thank you for the review! I always love to get the feedback from the people who read the story in one go for the first time- reminds the present me, who is writing one slow chapter at a time, that there is a larger story taking shape beyond the edges of writing madness. So cheers, and thanks!

Kizzy: You've got a point there. And, for all intents and purposes, consider Gregory and Bubbles... very far away... I think. Not sure. We'll see how I feel a week from now!