Outlanders

Chapter 51: Release


One after another, the white gloves made a clean snap as they were pulled down the length of Vegeta's hands. Nappa had watched the Prince dress himself many times, had done so for many years, but there was an air of novelty surrounding this particular occasion. The armor, hewn to Vegeta's body like a smoothed section of rock, held itself in place as Vegeta sat and dug his feet into his ice-white boots.

Perhaps his unfamiliarity was driven by time- the last time Vegeta had requested his presence when suiting up, the Prince couldn't have been half of Nappa's height or age. It was… years ago, if he remembered correctly, when Vegeta had come back from a difficult mission rattled- though, of course, as a true Saiyan he had never shown his disquiet directly, though Nappa could tell regardless- and had requested Nappa's presence to ensure he was dressed as befitting his status when he next emerged to the other soldiery of the PTO. Nappa had watched the prince struggle through his fresh injuries and dress without help, and had given his nod of approval at the end, and nothing more was said or done by either of them. But the veneer Vegeta strode out with on that day, which hid a hundred different painful wounds just beneath his intimidating attire, had remained unbroken since. The Prince was no longer a child, and did not need others to shoulder his burdens.

Which is why he didn't understand his purpose here. The Saiyan before him was completed by himself, for himself, and did not need Nappa to sit here. He felt odd, out-of-place, and his mind began to plunge and spiral-

'Rise, Nappa,' Vegeta commanded of him. 'Does it reach the floor?'

Nappa broke out of his thoughts and regarded Vegeta- regarded the long, flowing red cape that draped itself down his shoulders and billowed to his feet. It was measured perfectly; it ended just below the tops of his boots.

'No, Vegeta.'

Vegeta smiled at this, and with an unintentional twirl of his cape, turned away from Nappa. 'Come, then; we've work to do.'

His Prince was halfway out of the room before Nappa physically shook his head and fell in behind him.

How could he forget? He had a part to play.

0o0o0

'You would think we would have been greeted by now.'

'Well, Bulma is a busy woman.'

'Doesn't have to be Bulma. Could be a guard, or her parents, of one of those… those-' Fingers snapping. 'those people who… ah….'

'Are you talking about the scientists?'

'Yes! Those people.'

'Why would they stop us?'

'I dunno. Don't they have to leave buildings and walk around outside sometimes, too?'

'Can't give you a definite answer on that.'

'I keep telling you this- this is pretty odd…'

Puar ignored Oolong verbally trailing off behind her and instead focused her attention on the open field adjacent to the main, half-sphere Capsule Corp. complex, and studied the scene from within a row of bushes. She had to admit; It was odd that they had gotten this far onto Capsule Corp. property without being stopped. Or seen, or flagged, or noticed in really any way. The last time Puar had been here, she remembered having to go through some sort of checkpoint with an annoying security guard. Or was that someone else? Did she watch someone else deal with an annoying security guard? Dear Kami, she had played so many different lives and roles over these past few years she couldn't even remember which memories were hers anymore. She needed to do some much needed reminiscing with everyone, just to remind herself that she was actually Puar and not some robot cyborg designed to sometimes look like a flying cat-

Oolong began to shake her shoulder. 'Hey!' he whispered, pointing. 'Who's that?'

She followed his indication; a man on a pair of crutches was moving into the center of the field from the direction of the main building, though every few feet he would stop, poke the ground a few times with one of his crutches, and then resume his journey out. He looked vaguely familiar in the same way all strangers had looked familiar to Puar when she had worked that cover job of scooping ice cream in the park.

'I think I know that guy,' Oolong spoke up; he was now beside her peering out. 'Yeah, I definitely recognize him,' he said with more confidence.

'Really? Who is he?'

'He fought in one of the tournaments, way back when,' Oolong said, squinting. 'If I remember correctly, his name was Bam, or maybe-'

'Bam?' Puar questioned. 'What tournament was this, again?'

'The first one- err, the first one we went to. The one where Yamcha got to the finals.'

'The 21st? There wasn't a "Bam" there. Besides us, I remember the big, smelly man, the woman, the old man who won, and-' Puar's eyes went wide, and she focused her gaze on Oolong. 'Are you talking about that guy from the village? Nam?'

'That's it! Nam!' Oolong agreed. 'That's definitely it!'

Puar hmmm-ed, and appraised the man before them. 'No… this guy can't be Nam. He looks a lot like him, but he's far too young.'

'You can tell how old he is from here?' Oolong asked skeptically.

'I can tell with a high degree of confidence, yes.'

'I still think it's Nam. And if it's not, then it's someone we know. Let's go ask him.'

'Wait!' Puar grabbed Oolong's arm and halted him. 'We barely know anything about that guy. For all we know, he could be some sort of hitman gunning for Bulma's life-'

'You're being ridiculous.'

'No!' Puar protested. 'It's- well, we just haven't broken our cover in such a long time. I don't want to blow it for no reason.'

He looked at her, then shook his head. 'No,' he said, 'that's not it. Try again.'

'I'm… anxious,' Puar confessed. 'About meeting everyone. It's been a while; years. Everyone's changed. We've changed. I'm just worried about… everything…' Puar ended meekly.

Oolong wasn't the brightest pig around, and he would never claim to be particularly good at handling other people's emotions, but in this moment, he felt he did fairly well. 'We don't have to meet them today. We can wait. There's no rush. They're not going anywhere, and neither are we.' He paused. 'Alright?'

She still looked upset, but she forced herself to smile. 'We'll meet them soon. Just… a few more days…'

There was then silence between them, but it was a silence they had built together. Oolong was content to let things be until he glanced again into the open field. 'Hey,' He spoke up. 'I think the man is finishing whatever he's doing.'

They watched as the man reached the center of the field, did one final poke of the ground, and then spun to face their direction. 'Hey!' he called out. 'You can come out now!'

Puar and Oolong nearly jumped up in that instant, but collected themselves admirably and quickly slunk back into the bushes. 'Let's go,' Puar urged, 'now-'

'If you try to run, I promise it'll be unpleasant!' the man's voice rang through the bushes. His tone was ambiguous enough to be interpreted as widely as friendly, hostile, or just plain ambivalent.

'We weren't going to!' Oolong quickly shouted back in response.

'Oh…' the voice replied, muted. 'Okay!'

'Puar,' Oolong addressed her. 'You know we need to-'

'I know,' Puar conceded. 'Just… give me a minute.'

Two minutes passed before they emerged into the open field, Puar looking only incrementally more sheepish than Oolong did. 'Sorry about the snooping around,' he said. 'We just, ehh… haven't been around here in a while.'

Retu cocked an eyebrow at them. 'How long?'

When they informed him of the length of their absence, Retu's expression dropped an inch. 'Ah. I assume you're looking for Bulma, then. I'm sorry to tell you this, but she's not here.'

'What about Yamcha? You know him?' Puar asked.

'He's not here, either. They're both… in space at the moment.' Retu initially was going to include the word "lost", but the sight of their curdling faces deterred him.

'I don't understand,' Oolong said in a confused tone. 'What space? The space? You're joking right?'

Retu frowned. 'A lot has happened. Mostly bad, but... some good. Soon. Hopefully. It's good that you guys came today, actually; everyone should be around in about an hour or so.'

Before Puar and Oolong could ask any more questions- they both looked extremely confused- Retu gestured toward the Capsule Corp. building. 'I promise I'll explain everything in there. We really need to get inside first, though.'

'Why?' Puar asked.

'Because in less than a minute, the ground beneath our feet is going to curl back and reveal a giant spaceship. So, could we?...'

They didn't give him any trouble after that, and with time to spare, they parked themselves against a big, outward-facing window and watched a round and impossibly shiny sphere rise up from below. As the sheer size of it became apparent to Puar and Oolong- it was large enough to dwarf some of the smaller skyscrapers in West City- the seeming impossibility of the words that Retu peppered them with suddenly became a lot more reasonable.

0o0o0

Bulma strode down the hallway as fast as her legs and her boldness would carry her. It was dangerous to be pushing her body, which still hadn't fully adjusted to the gravity, to move as fast as she was going currently. But Tien and Yamcha hadn't minced words; their time here was most likely rapidly coming to a close, and if they were going to survive this imminent transition, they needed leave soon.

She rounded a corner, gripping the hallway's railing for dear life as she went, and started down the last long corridor to the supply room. It would come down to luck- an absurd amount of luck, to be exact- to determine whether she would discover Namek's coordinates. She still hoped to achieve the original mission they had set out with- while she did have the Earth's coordinates tucked away, and she was pretty sure she could pilot a ship back home for the three of them, there was no guarantee the Saiyans wouldn't just follow them there. It was safe to assume that if Raditz knew about the Earth, Vegeta and Nappa did as well, and knowing that…

Bulma really didn't know what to make of that. Tien and Yamcha also didn't know what to make of that, and were both reluctant to acknowledge the awe-inspiring amount of power Vegeta possessed. But Bulma didn't need things to be spelled out for her- the prospect of either of the Saiyans traveling to Earth now would result in a slaughter.

So she considered alternatives. And while she didn't like the idea that absconding off to Namek might cause the Saiyans to follow in their wake, she actually preferred that to any scenario where they might be tempted to travel straight to Earth. But Kami, what a cruddy run of options…

She was close to the room now, its door stretching out before her in a hallway that seemed to grow longer the more she tired, but the individual buttons of the keypad were in sight now. A few more paces and she would pass into the room and begin to work miracles.

There was an intersection just before the door, leading off to a passage she had never seen a person walk down before, and she was utterly shocked when someone stepped out that passage a few feet before she had passed it.

'Hey,' Nappa said with a cruel laugh, lording over her like a giant, implacable wall, 'what's the rush?' He then grabbed her by the arms and spun her around, ignoring her yelps and cries, and Bulma felt the cold touch of metal slapping across her wrists. 'You were running the wrong way!' Nappa exclaimed. 'The shuttle is in the other direction. Good thing I was here to straighten you out, hah!'

'The shuttle to where?' Bulma demanded fiercely.

'Somewhere else,' Nappa replied. He then shoved her, almost strong enough to push her off her feet, but she stumbled and caught herself after a few seconds. 'Get moving!' he yelled.

'And if I refuse?' Bulma hissed.

'Then you don't leave this planet. Ever.' He came up behind her again, and Bulma could feel the hands hovering inches away from her back. 'Are you going to be difficult? Because it's a much harder walk when one of your legs are broken…'

She surged forward and straightened her back. 'Don't touch me again,' she bristled, throwing a furious glare over her shoulder. 'I can walk without your prodding.'

'Then move,' Nappa growled.

She took a few angry strides down the hallway, but then she stopped and asked: 'Are Tien and Yamcha waiting for me?'

Nappa laughed, and pushed her forward again.

0o0o0

Their utensils clanged and scraped against the metal trays, the two of them trying to eat as mechanically as possible, but after a time Yamcha let his implements clatter to the table and slid the tray away from him into the center of the table. Tien, sitting opposite him, eyed him and spooned another chunk of food into his own mouth. 'You really should be eating,' he said.

'I'm not hungry,' Yamcha replied.

'Neither am I, but you don't see me not eating,' Tien said before shoving another spoonful of food into his mouth. 'We both know that any one of these meals could be our last one in a while. So eat.'

Yamcha was unaffected by Tien's command; he even went so far as to push his own tray farther away from him. 'Why don't you go advise Bez on his eating habits? Huh?' Yamcha said bitterly.

Tien glared at Yamcha and dropped his utensils. He was never going to lie to Yamcha; they were two of the three Earthlings in space, and he comprised one-half of the people Tien would trust unquestionably out here. But at the moment, however, Tien wished he had broken that rule a few days ago when he had informed Yamcha that he had spared the alien that had tried to kill them.

'Do you want me to spell things out for you for the hundredth time?' Tien asked without any attempt to mollify his own thoughts. 'Because you were either not listening or didn't care the first ninety-nine times?' When Yamcha made no audible reply, he went on. 'Bez is an ever sadder person than you are, Yamcha, which you would see if you weren't drowning in the self-hatred you're projecting onto me. His circumstances for being here are no different from our own, except that he didn't have the luxury of leaving a planet that was worth fighting for- no, he ran from a world that was slaughtered for profit, and did what he had to to survive, because his home had ceased to exist and the galaxy didn't want him.' There was a little nagging voice in the back of his head telling him to stop, to disengage, but even if Yamcha had started this conversation, Tien decided that he would finish it. 'For all I know, he could have been the last of his race, considering that we killed the two that were with him.'

'We should have killed him,' Yamcha said, unflinching. 'He was a monster- you said so yourself.'

'I would have been a monster if I had gone through what he had!' Tien yelled. 'Not to mention that I would never willingly associate with someone that we both agree is that depraved! And, do need I remind you who forced me to make that decision in the first place?!' If it weren't for the loud and ever-present ambiance of the mess hall, Tien was sure heads would have turned to the commotion he was making by now. 'It was you! YOU enabled him to follow us! YOU nearly killed us!'

Yamcha held his gaze with Tien through this, but a few seconds after Tien had finished, the defiance in Yamcha's eyes faded away. The tone of their conversation immediately shifted. 'I know I messed up bad,' Yamcha said, moving and wrapping his hands around his mouth like the many folds of a bandana. 'I thought getting information would help us… talking to everyone who might offer that… I thought...'

Despite himself- despite the gnawing, grinding anger that Yamcha's questioning of him had emboldened- Tien felt sad at the visible sag he now saw in Yamcha.

'I haven't seen anything of Bez since I dropped him off in the medical wing,' Tien said quietly, seeking to reassure the doubts that surely must have plagued Yamcha's mind. 'You know this; you know that we only have each other and Bulma to rely on. We have to keep each other strong. Which… is why we should eat.'

'I'm not hungry.'

There was nothing more to be said between them, and Tien, having lost his appetite, did the same as Yamcha and pushed his tray into the center of the table. Amongst the hall of cheering, brawling, and boisterous PTO soldiers, they alone were silent.

Tien was about to try and restart their conversation when something caught his attention; a deathly silence had descended on the room. He was just able to alert Yamcha to the change in atmosphere when a figure stood up on a table at the far end of the mess hall.

His heart nearly stopped. Vegeta, buttressed with a red cape and a menacing smirk, threw out his arms to address the crowd. 'Everyone! I have an announcement to make!'

The room was large enough for someone to be seated at the edges and be unnoticed, so with as much inconspicuousness as Tien could muster, he leaned over his table towards Yamcha. 'We need to go,' he whispered, 'now.'

The color had drained from Yamcha's face- he seemed to recognize to whom the voice which was now booming off the room's walls belonged to. 'Alright, yeah.'

'I bring news from Frieza,' Vegeta proclaimed as Tien and Yamcha pushed themselves through the edges of the crowd. 'He said, word-for-word, "I could not be prouder with the men and women who serve under me", and to that effect, he arranged for me to present everyone at this base with a reward.'

Murmurs rose up from the gathered troops; some were confused, leery, but these were quickly overshadowed by the growing clamor of interest riding across the crowd. Voices began to form words. "What did he say?"- "What's the reward?"- "About time! Busting our asses…"

Vegeta ignored them. He always ignored the chattering of idiots. 'The reward is this!' He yelled above the growing noise, setting his arms into a straight line above his head. The bottoms of his palms pressed together, and above their combined surface, a dark blue glow began to spill out and down.

Even if Tien hadn't known how to sense ki, he would have ascertained what was about to happen by the simultaneous beep of every scouter on every soldier's head present. As such, he practically threw himself towards the nearest double-door exit, dragging Yamcha to the ground with him. He was halfway there when a word cut through his mind-

'FAREWELL!' And his world was absolved in a tide of noise and light.

0o0o0

Bulma was chained to a metal railing within the shuttle like an animal, and when she had raged and spat out every curse she could think of at Nappa, the bad taste in her mouth was made worse by his cruel and indifferent laughter. She would have liked to grab the nearest thing near her and throw it at his stupid bald head as he ambled off, but chained as she was, there was no nearest thing to her, and even then, she doubted she could have thrown it with enough strength to reach him. And, so, she was left alone with some of the most vindictive, violent thoughts that had ever entered her head.

But these thoughts were meaningless, here, now; she forced herself to let go the seething anger, and focus on what she could do. She set out fiddling with the metal handcuff that detained her- failing to find a fault with it, she started to manipulate the handcuff to see how far she could get along the railing while still chained to it. For her effort she discovered she had about six inches of leeway in any direction. Six inches. Six…

Her back slid down against the cold metal lining of the ship and she fell into a sitting position. Just… six… She drew her knees closer to her; This… I…

It was too much to bear. She had tried her hardest to save them- she had intimidated, lied, and buttered her way into a position where she could help them, where she was out of her bed and right at home amidst whirring computers and tech. She had done this not knowing what had happened to Tien and Yamcha while they were on their mission, and had continued to do so after seeing how wounded they were on their return. Clumps of her own hair had started to fall from her scalp when she realized that they had nearly died for her, and would die for her if she didn't figure out how they would escape in time. And, today, injustice smiled upon her; her chance to put everything together was wrenched out of her hands. Her life was wrenched from her, as casually as someone would pluck a blade of grass. In light of all this, and chained to what appeared to be the first in a long line of indignities that awaited her in the future, she didn't know what was worse; to know if Tien and Yamcha were dead, or to be separated from them… forever.

Bitter tears fell, and her sobs sounded ragged in the small confines of the shuttle. She didn't want to cry- she hated crying- but she was far too committed to the ugly act to stop. She was being swept away with the swell.

Bulma was like this for a time, swallowed by her hopelessness, until she heard soft footsteps echo on the edge of her hearing- soft enough for her to doubt that they were real. She wiped a tear-stained arm across her face and listened, and to her surprise, heard the footsteps grow louder. Her mind quickly turned; she stood, and summoned whatever fury she had left for her cruel imprisoner.

The footsteps grew to a peak, stopped briefly, and then she heard the person start to ascend the ramp leading into the shuttle. But she did not see a bald head- or, at least, not fully bald- but instead an older head graced with long grey hair on all sides. She made a choking sound.

Planthorr looked agitated and rushed to her side quickly. 'Do not tell me anything,' he said brusquely as he produced a key. 'I was never here.'

A click and a second later, Bulma stood stunned, rubbing her freed wrist as if she had lost a hand and had suddenly regrown it. 'I… I don't…'

'No questions!' Planthorr chided her. He began to reach for the free handcuff lying on the floor, but then froze, and pulled back. 'Please, for the literal life of me,' he said, 'take that thing with you.' He then dropped the key to the ground rather abruptly. 'That, too.'

Then he turned and began to stride hurriedly out of the shuttle. 'If your friends are lucky,' he said, pausing just before the ramp, 'they'll be here soon. Be ready.'

'I- I don't understand,' Bulma said softly. 'Why are you helping me? Helping us?'

He half-turned to her and looked like he would say something, but nervousness rolled across his face and instead he gave her a curious smile. 'Bye,' he stated simply, and hurried down the ramp.

She stared off towards the ramp, long after he had passed from sight, and listened to his footsteps slowly recede. What had just happened was bizarre, dream-like, and she couldn't- would not make sense of it. There was something to their interaction that had so deeply dissatisfied her, like the feeling of unexpectedly arriving at the abrupt end of a book, that tried to compel her to chase after him, grab him by the arm, and demand an explanation as to what just happened.

But then, with the concentrated focus of a brilliant mind, she brushed it aside and set herself upon the shuttle's cockpit. She was in a position to actually do something now; she wasn't going to waste the opportunity.

Her fingers flashing down on the ship's main console, Bulma cursorily examined what must have been the navigational assist system that enabled the ship to do interstellar travel. Haltingly, she drew out her hidden notepad and inputted the Earth's coordinates to her system, and to her relief, the system seemed to accept them and locked in the planet as its destination. It was simpler than she had feared, and the relief from calculating their trip to Earth that quickly caused her to collapse back into the pilot's chair.

And then an idea struck her. She didn't know where Namek was- it didn't seem that anyone in the PTO knew- but there was someone she knew who did know. With a growing eagerness she turned on the ship's communication system, and calling upon her time spent traveling in Kami's ship, she pulled on some questionable knowledge…

And, when she had made as best an approximation of what could be remembered, she pressed a button on the ship's console and yelled.

0o0o0

'... So you've already decided who's going, then?' Retu asked broadly of everyone gathered. Chi-Chi, Launch, and Rayne were in one group, hanging back and generally disengaged from the larger conversation, while Puar and Oolong were farther back and still marveling through the window at the massive spaceship parked on the Capsule Corp. lawn. None of them looked particularly happy to be here, but for those who knew of this day beforehand, it was necessary that they should see off whoever volunteered.

From one side, situated next to Chiaotzu, Suno stepped forward. 'Us two,' she answered with a bit of swagger. 'We'll go.'

'Put me down on the record as saying I'm not a fan of this,' Launch sniped from her right, 'if we want to maximize our chances of success, I should be going alone.'

'You're the strongest person we have,' Rayne gently reminded Launch. 'which makes you needed here. And, besides, it wouldn't make any sense to send you off into space by yourself.'

'Which is my condition for going, which you all have voted down, so here we are,' Launch said quickly. She then turned her attention to Suno. 'You know you're not ready for this, right?'

Suno looked offended, but before she could say anything, Chiaotzu jumped in. 'Together, I think we'll be okay,' he said. 'And, if Launch isn't going, we're really the only people who can afford to be off planet for whoever long this takes.'

Glances were thrown in Chi-Chi and Rayne's direction, and the latter's face twisted into a suspicious scowl. 'Wait… why is everyone looking at me? I don't-' She suddenly got the feeling that something that was supposed to be private was very public.

'Bulma sorta told everyone before she left, in case she wasn't back before…' Chiaotzu tapered off, then said, 'So we could throw a party for you, or something, in her stead. Uhh… sorry about that,' he added faintly.

'Oh. I- oh…' Blushing, and feeling like there were too many eyes on her at once, Rayne meekly faded into the background.

Chi-Chi coughed. 'Is the ship ready, then? If it's possible, I want to get back to Fire Mountain by tonight.'

'Ambitious, aren't we?' Launch said facetiously. 'That's a fair distance to travel in one go.'

'I'm trying to get back into training. Haven't really done much, with, well, you know…'

'You'd do better with someone to push you to get there faster.'

'Is that an offer?'

'Is that a challenge?'

They then stared at each other, each one giving the other a strange look. 'The ship's almost ready,' Retu replied to Chi-Chi's earlier question. 'Mr. Briefs should be done with the final check soon. And then you two can do your… whatever.'

'Training,' Launch corrected him. 'And, speaking of, when's the last time you've done any of that?'

Retu cocked an eyebrow at her. 'Me? You do see me leaning on my crutches, right?'

'Don't you remember?' Launch flashed him a knowing smile. 'We both studied under that old fart, Master Roshi, and he consistently moved much better than someone of his age should have.'

'What are you getting at?'

'She's suggesting you can use your ki to walk unassisted, without your crutches, you doofus,' Suno said impertinently.

Retu froze up at being addressed directed by her. 'Do- doofus?' he stuttered.

'I agree with the young blood on this one,' Launch cut in. 'You're being a major…' she stifled a laugh. 'doofus... '

Suno, sensing an underlying current of mockery, swung her gaze towards Launch. 'What's so funny?' she demanded.

'Just… ah…' Launch waved away the question, even as she made Suno more and more annoyed by her snickering. This interplay caught on with everyone else; soon enough, everyone present except for Suno and Retu was on the spectrum between giggling and full-out laughing. The latter looked terribly embarrassed, while the former looked increasingly enraged. 'What is it!?' Suno demanded once more.

In the midst of this scene, a voice, blaring from some high-up intercom in the room, yelled out: 'Hello?! Anyone there!?'

0o0o0

Bulma kept herself draped over the console for seconds that felt like hours, wondering whether the silence she heard was due to an inevitable misstep of her mind, or to the long delay it took for a message to ping-pong through space. Then, at last, she heard something.

'-Bulma?' a voice, thick with disbelief, crackled back.

Relief flushed through her. 'Retu!' She cried. 'It's- I can't- alright, great to hear from you, what we need to do- I can't believe this-'

'Bulma!' Retu's voice warbled. 'Slow down! What's going on? Where are you?'

'Unimportant!' She replied, manic. 'We can speak at our leisure later, but right now, I need you to read out Namek's coordinates to me!'

There a brief period of silence on the other end, just long enough for Bulma to dread that the connection had been lost, but then she heard the sound of frantic shuffling and running. 'It's- hold on! It's… right here…'

She could taste victory on the tip of her tongue, and with a dramatic flourish, she hoisted her notepad and struck a ready pose to write the coordinates.

A few seconds later, a neat line of numbers and letters, unrecognizable as anything but random to the untrained eye, was scrawled in resplendent fashion across the lines of a page. 'Fantastic…' Bulma breathed.

'So, uh,' Retu pressed, 'You gonna-'

'No time! We'll be on our way to Namek soon! But I gotta work now! Say hi to my Dad and everyone else!' And, with that, she pressed a button on the console and ended the call.

It took a moment for reality, among other things, to set in. She couldn't believe it. She had made tech created by two different friggin species, separated from each other by an impossibly large interstellar distance, talk to each other. She had remembered the private frequency used for the Capsule Corp. PA system, had hacked it, and patched through her voice to friends she had been dreaming of seeing again. She… she was genuinely surprised by the force of her own intellect. She couldn't remember the last time that had happened.

Everything was turning out… according to plan. She could slap herself with joy. And I might as well, when there's a high chance that everything blows up in my face, any moment now...

It was ironic that, just at the moment when she figured she was due for another misfortune, an ominous boom and rumble rolled through the cockpit. And then she remembered that there were some things that were beyond the capabilities of her illustrious mind to do.

0o0o0

'Kevin Woo?'

'Eh?' The human fighter poked his head and halo up above his magazine and looked over at King Kai. At the deity's side, Piccolo and Krillin looked to be standing easily under their own weight. 'Oh? You've finished already?' He scooted up in his chair, set the magazine aside, and bounced to his feet. 'That was quick.'

'Quick?' Piccolo stressed. 'It took us days to get to this point!'

Kevin Woo lazily stretched his arms and did an even lazier study of them. 'Huh. I didn't notice.'

'How did you not notice days passing?' Krillin asked.

'How do you know days actually passed? Has the light level in this realm changed at all? Have you gone to sleep and felt that you got a good night's rest? Have you slept?'

'No,' Piccolo said, 'but I've been keeping track of time. In my… head.'

'And how confident are you about your count at this point?'

'Uhh…' Piccolo's face tightened with stubbornness. 'Well enough.'

Kevin Woo let his skeptical gaze rest on Piccolo for a second, then said: "King Kai, how long have these two been dead for exactly- but before you say it, I want to hear what our green friend here has to say.'

'We've been dead for- for two months!'

'King Kai?'

'Close,' King Kai replied with a smirk. 'Not. Four months is the answer you're looking for.'

'Four months?' Krillin moaned. 'That's so long! I… I'm missing out on important stuff on Earth!'

'Earth? Missing?' King Kai gave Krillin a strange look. 'Dead people aren't usually working with a timetable for when they'll return to the living... but I'll hold back my curiosity for a moment. It is time for us to begin your actual training.'

Piccolo straightened at this. 'About time,' he muttered.

King Kai threw a measured glare at Piccolo. 'I'm going to ignore that comment,' he said, 'because the training you've received so far is very representative of future training methods I will employ.' King Kai lowered his head, and a foreboding shadow cast by his round shades fell across his eyes. 'If you're unhappy with my training… I'm sure they're taking on more students in Hell…'

'Uhh-' Piccolo said, cowing instantly, 'that won't be necessary, King Kai.'

'Good,' King Kai said quickly, recalling his previous lightheartedness, 'because it wouldn't do for you to quit on the verge of something truly special. I've decided that to best train you two, I want to give you a goal; something to aim for, that is, that will not only shatter what you think the limits of power are, but also prove that this power can be bestowed on mortals and gods alike.' As he said this, he held his hands, clasped together, behind his back and assumed a relaxed pose. 'Open your ki sense to this planet, to me, and understand the task that lies ahead of you.'

Krillin and Piccolo nodded- this was something they could do easily, on command, as opposed to all the other tortured tasks they had done here so far- and each sat cross-legged on the glossy grass. Slowly, they loosened their hold on their own ki and focused outwards; they were both startled to sense how strong they had both grown since they had died.

'Judging from the expressions on your faces,' King Kai said cheerily, 'you've both discovered the first secret about the Otherworld- Snake Way does wonders for your cardio. But… pay attention, now.'

They centered their attention on King Kai, and with a simple flutter, his full power was revealed; it felt gentle, caressing, and had a wholly unfamiliar feeling to it than most mortal ki Krillin and Piccolo had sensed. People typically have a flavor to how they sensed, fed by their personality and temperament- but King Kai's ki felt like a universal force, perfectly balanced in startlingly smooth ways. It was like palming a ball and finding it perfectly spherical.

And, of course, it was large. Krillin reckoned that he was sensing about five "Raditzs" in a single being. It was staggering.

'Your strength…' Piccolo began to murmur. 'It's…'

'I know what you're about to say,' King Kai said with a grin, 'but trust me, you're going to want to wait until the end.'

'The… end?'

Kevin Woo, facing away from Krillin and Piccolo, stepped over to King Kai and handed off his shades to him. When he turned to face them, there was something immediately striking about his eyes- though they were young and vibrant, there was a wisdom laid behind them that seemed to pierce whatever they were set upon. The sense of familiarity Krillin and Piccolo felt around Kevin Woo roared back to them two, three times stronger than before, though their minds struggled to keep pace with what they were seeing. Then, with a solemn lowering of his arms to his sides, Kevin Woo tensed.

King Kai backed away, and amidst a growing wind gently pushing across the planet, he said, 'I consider myself strong… one of the strongest Kais of the current generation… but Kevin Woo… the greatest student I've ever had the pleasure to instruct…' The wind now was growing into a tumbling pulse, whipping and lashing across their skin like a thousand little cuts. 'He surpassed me!'

Power was unveiled like a wrapped fabric, spooling out across them, over them, through them as if it totally indifferent to their existence. Krillin and Piccolo struggled to keep a sense of themselves whole as this planet-shaking storm descended on them, drowning them, in more power than either one of them would have thought possible for a single being to possess. Faced with such a magnitude of strength, such a wall of unmitigated force, it was all they could do to simply sit there and not be pushed away by its magnificence. Krillin did the frantic, rough math very quickly- he was being buffeted by upwards of forty Raditzs' worth of strength. It was… it must have been impossible, except that it was, and even more so, very possible.

And in the center of it all, standing like a shining pillar, Master Roshi- because yes, now that his full power was on display, there was no doubting that silly, steadfast, and controlled energy that dwarfed them at every turn- gazed at them and smiled an easy smile, content to let his simple black clothes flutter furiously in the wind. Then, with a simple tense of his body, the force and wind vanished, and his energy was spooled back into him.

King Kai had known about "Kevin Woo's" real identity and relationship to Krillin and Piccolo before this, of course, and so hung back in a similar entertained state to Master Roshi and watched his new pupils visually process this turn of events. They seemed to be diverging; Krillin's face grew droopy, bewildered, while Piccolo looked increasingly agitated. 'That's outrageous!' the Namekian fumed, standing up abruptly and fully extending an accusing arm and gesture towards Master Roshi. 'How! How are you that strong!?'

'You know I've been here for five years, right?' Master Roshi said amicably. 'And, I hate to break it to you, but they are far stronger beings than me hanging out with the other Kais.'

'Oh, stop that,' King Kai tutted in a way evidencing this was a conversation they had had before. 'I've seen West Kai's peons, and they're nothing to you!'

'Have you seen some of West Kai's fighters? They're much stronger than me!' Master Roshi said cheerfully.

'You have techniques!' King Kaid said impatiently. 'So be quiet, and accept your greatness!'

Master Roshi gave a nervous laugh, and lacking anything to do with his arms, scratched the back of his head.

'Outrageous!' Piccolo repeated, pumping his arms up and down like his body was a water spigot. He then spun around and started to walk down one side of the planet. 'To think- to think!' He yelled as he disappeared from sight, though his grumblings never fully left them as the planet was quite small.

'I… I'm sorry…' Krillin spoke up, drawing his head up from his lap, 'but… you were Kevin Woo the entire time?

'You were never very good at seeing through my disguises,' Master Roshi said in a disappointed tone. 'None of you were, to be honest.'

'But- But- but that's not even a disguise!' Krillin complained. 'You aren't wearing a wig, or a different outfit; you're practically a different person!' Krillin looked hurt, and briefly, it appeared this feeling was directed at Master Roshi, but then he said, 'I'm sorry I didn't recognize you, Master Roshi.' He sniffled. 'I should have recognized you- you, who taught me so much about how to fight, how to protect those who can't protect themselves-'

Before Krillin knew what was happening, he was drawn into a hug, and though Krillin had never known this exact caress when alive, it felt warm and reassuring and kind. It was what he had needed, without him knowing; he had just wanted to see Master Roshi again. 'I'm sorry... ' he said, nearly crying, 'I'm sorry- I'm sorry I let you die…'

Master Roshi let his former pupil exhaust himself and rubbed his hands in consoling circles on Krillin's back. 'It's alright. We all die one day, Krillin. I couldn't have asked for a better death- I went out like a great teacher should. I fought for all the good in the world, died for it, and then was avenged by my students.' An old memory, very old, crossed paths with Master Roshi's train of thought, and he said, 'One day, I'll tell you about Master Mutaito, and you'll understand. But until then… cry.'

And Krillin did. King Kai was not used to such an emphatic display that he couldn't nudge away with humor. But at least he could be thankful that he had someone else for Krillin to throw himself on.

It took a while, but eventually Krillin's crying ran its course, and he decoupled from Master Roshi, dabbing at his eyes. 'It's nice to see you, if I haven't said so already,' he said in a quiet, appreciative voice.

'It's nice to see you, too.'

Around this time the grumblings came closer, and Piccolo re-appeared to them. King Kai hung an eyebrow high on his face. 'Are you done?' he asked dryly.

'I took exactly as much time needed to process and destroy every last ounce of my self-aggrandizing nature I had left,' Piccolo replied dryly. 'Having accepted this, we can now proceed.'

Master Roshi gave a crisp laugh, and turned: 'That's it? Just like that, you dispersed everything you were feeling? What about my big reveal? You're face-to-face with your father's would-be killer, who seems to have been rewarded for his acts of resistance against King Piccolo in life. Doesn't that make you mad? Angry? What do you think?'

'I don't think much of it,' Piccolo said flatly. 'King Piccolo led a different life from mine, and made different mistakes. My father did beat you in the end, though even if that result was flipped, I wouldn't care. What's done is done.' Piccolo scowled at him, but it seemed to be motivated more by disagreement than malice. 'King Piccolo was his own being, as am I.'

Master Roshi seemed to be surprised by this response, for he spent a moment searching Piccolo's eyes. 'I'm happy to hear that, then,' he finally said. 'I feel a bit better about you being here, then, if I'm being frank.'

Piccolo's face then drew into a long, cocky smirk. 'I'm not absolving myself of any crimes or misdeeds, to be clear. Once I'm brought back to life, I fully intend to stake my claim over the Earth and all the weaklings who live there.' He glanced between Krillin and Master Roshi. 'I want both of you to know that.'

The two humans frowned, but Krillin said: 'That's fine by me. You've handed me another reason to give this training my all.'

'I'm sensing some anticipation,' King Kai chimed in. 'Both of you are ready to start, then?'

Krillin and Piccolo held their gaze on each other, and then they turned to King Kai at the same time and gave stout nods.

Master Roshi looked at them for a time, and watched them listen to King Kai's every word with sharpened focus, and then wandered back to his chair and magazine. Until I'm called upon again, then...

0o0o0

They were lucky enough to survive the first, seemingly life-ceasing blast that had divided into a hundred shards and flattened the mess hall and every soldier in it; they couldn't count on luck again. As fast as they could manage, Tien and Yamcha sprinted through the narrow, square halls of the base, more so away from what they had just lived through and less towards some determinate goal. They clacked shoulders against other PTO soldiers, all to differing degrees confused and worried, and the longer they ran, the more they recognized a growing panic among the people they passed. Soon enough, while distant rumblings so consistently shook the ground underneath their feet that it seemed like the entire planet was caught in an unending earthquake, the entire base was alight with frenzied activity; Tien and Yamcha saw carts filled to the brim with random things being rushed down corridors by one or two soldiers at a time, as well as others fighting and killing each other in an expression of long-running feuds.

It seemed that, once the one guarantee everyone here abided by unraveled- that their lives were protected as long as they served the cause- anarchy ruled.

After a time, Tien and Yamcha were forced to pause to catch their breath. 'This is crazy,' Yamcha said, wheezing. 'Has Vegeta lost his mind? He's slaughtering his own people!'

Tien's gaze flickered to Tien. 'In the same way we were Bez's people. You ready to run again, slower this time?'

Yamcha nodded, and they set off again. Tien took the lead.

This time they maintained a more brisk yet manageable pace, which allowed to think as they ran. After they rounded what felt like ten more hallway corners, Yamcha called on Tien to stop again. 'Do you know where you're going?' He asked pointedly.

Tien made a sour face. 'To be honest… no.'

'We're going to the pods, right? To the landing pads? We're leaving, right?'

'Yeah, I think that's a good idea.'

'Well, do you know where we are in relation to there?'

'...No.'

Yamcha shook his head in frustration, and then set off. 'Follow me.'

Tien had expected things to improve then, but soon enough they were rounding corners in the same brazen fashion he had led them in minutes ago. On top of this, another thought jumped into his head. 'What about Bulma?'

Yamcha halted, and Tien heard him mutter something under his breath. 'Damn it,' he said more audibly. 'Where did she say she would be? That storage room at one of the far ends of the base?'

'I think that's right,' Tien agreed. 'Do you know how to get there?'

'... I think. C'mon- let's go.'

They set off after a pause for the third time, and in spite of Yamcha's assurances, the lack of direction Tien felt as to where they were going plagued him.

'Are you sure that you know where we're going?' He asked as they rounded another short corner. 'It feels like we're-'

Tien ran into Yamcha's back, and clunked painfully against the back of his armor. 'Hey!' he yelped, lifting his head clear above Yamcha shoulders, 'What's-'

His question died in his throat. Looming at the end of the hall, far beyond a number of other PTO soldiers who looked similarly paralyzed with fear, was a hulking, monstrous figure, one golden glowing hand outstretched in their direction like a gun. 'Back to training, then!' Nappa yelled down the corridor while letting loose a disturbing laugh. 'Dodge this!' A blast screamed from his hand, broke apart halfway to them, and showered Tien's vision with stabbing, painful, searing light.

0o0o0

Nappa waited in rapt anticipation for what his work had done- the smoke took its tedious time clearing from the blast radius- but, upon seeing the full extent of his devastation, he sobered up and reminded himself of his duty. He wasn't quite done yet.

But the blast had done its job; the corridor before him was flattened for as far as he could see into the smoke. 'Come out, come out, wherever you are…' Nappa said playfully. He had made a mess of things- there enough bodies lying on the ground to make identifying the two Earthlings a chore. 'Where are- ahhh…' Through the darkened streaks of grey sliding across the air, Nappa sighted the vague outline of a body that had the vague outline of three eyes on its head. 'There you are!'

He strode over, waving the smoke away from his eyes. 'I have some bad news for you two,' Nappa drawled to whichever one he presumed was still alive- the one with the scar over one of his eyes, if he remembered correctly- as he bent down and picked up the body by the front of its armor. 'Vegeta says I have to take one of you in. As for the other one, well… old three-eyes, I think your time is up- What?'

The armor Nappa had picked up was encasing the body of an entirely unfamiliar alien with three eyes. Their skin color was far too orange, too.

'Damn dead bodies everywhere,' he swore, tossing the body back to the ground. 'You're making this harder on- Aaargh!' A leg swing came out of nowhere and slammed against Nappa's back, catching him unaware more than actually hurting him. He growled, spun, but his hand swung through empty air and tore fruitlessly through the smoke. The next second, a thin yellow beam parted the smoke and lanced into the right side of his head, turning his scouter in a shower of metal bits

None of these puny attacks could touch him- but damn, were they annoying! Out of frustration, Nappa planted his feet into the broken earth. 'Come out and face me, you cowards!' He roared.

0o0o0

Just another mission. That- after Vegeta had wondered to himself for some time while his physical apparition continued to snuff out of the lives of weakling PTO soldiers, staff, and everything in between- was what this reminded him of. Just another contract to complete. Except this was far easier, and by extension, more boring. It was funny that the army he served in was proving less of a challenge to wipe out than most of the worlds he had purged.

With every weakling he mowed down without so much as a turn of his head, he grew more confident that he had made the right decision.

He eventually came to a wide, long corridor, and found a mass of soldiers engaged in an all-out brawl with each other, spilling blood of every color on the base's dirty walls and floors, and snapping bones and wrenching arms nearly out of their sockets. Vegeta was content to watch this for some time, entertained by the futility of the actions of weaker beings, and then with a wave of his hand, dismissed the scene from his presence.

When the dusted debris cleared, he was surprised to see someone still alive at the end of the hallway- it was a purple alien, bald, who, compared to all the other soldiers that had looked into his eyes so far, looked defiant. Vegeta was, in a word, interested.

'You look bold,' Vegeta said wryly.

'I know I can't kill you,' the purple alien replied, his voice unsteady from what must have been terror. Who would blame him? He had the courage to face his end like a true warrior. 'But I don't think I'm going to get out of this alive, so what the hell? I want to go down swinging.'

'Brave words,' Vegeta commented. 'But wouldn't you want to go out swinging against someone who you could actually fight? Because I'll be honest- you're more liable to flail around and die than do anything else against me.'

'That's exactly why I sought you out,' he said with an uneasy smile. 'I wanted to go out against the best.'

'Hah!' Vegeta barked with laughter. 'Well, who am I to reject such flattery? Come on, then- give me your best!' According to his scouter, this weakling didn't even have a power level of 2,000- what could he do to him?

The purple alien slowly nodded and bent closer to the ground, and began to emanate a soft white-yellow glow from his body. But his power level did not budge- it remained at 1,800. Pathetic. Vegeta was entirely amused as his would-be opponent gave a long, low growl.

Then, in a split-second, the alien's position shifted- blinked, almost- and Vegeta saw him charge at him, one luminescent hand held out before him, cradling a charge of energy. The Prince wasn't even going to bother to defend himself- he would let the fool land a hit on him, and then would step in and snap his neck.

Vegeta, arms crossed, thus let the attack hit him- it detonated painlessly across his face, doing nothing more than cause his hair to flutter some- and he promptly stepped in and swung his right arm up and around, intending to hook the alien by his neck and end his life.

But his arm hooked on nothing- he swung awkwardly through empty air, and he nearly stumbled to the ground by failing to grab onto a head to snap. With a huff, he flared his ki and dismissed the aerial particulates in the air resulting from the alien's attack, and searched- and saw nothing. The alien was nowhere to be seen. Vegeta very quickly checked his scouter, and found that the power signature he had been sensing was gone- or at least far enough away to not be distinguishable from the general mass of weak soldiery running around.

Vegeta's mind whirred, and it took him a moment for him to figure out what had happened, but inevitably, he gave a frustrated shake of his head. The cretin had tricked him- he had thrown a ki attack at him, made it appear that he was charging, but had run off as soon as the attack had been launched.

Shocked, Vegeta rubbed the spot on his jaw where the attack had landed. 'That… bastard…'

In the next moment, after Vegeta had impaled another hapless PTO soldier with a flick of a beam from his finger, any niggling irritation he felt dissipated.

0o0o0

Tien and Yamcha hung back beyond the dark grey cloud, their ki sense focused on the Saiyan brute swinging wildly through the smoke before them. It turns out that Tien's old hunch had been correct- these guys used scouters because they couldn't sense energy. It was such a massive, useful, but most importantly unusual advantage that he didn't really know how to capitalize on it.

Yamcha seemed to be having the same thoughts he was having. 'He's lashing out wildly right now- but what can we do?' he whispered so as to not be heard. 'He's so much stronger than us…'

Thinking, Tien chewed on his lip. 'Maybe we can take him out with some sort of concentrated attack- like you took out Raditz.'

'Or maybe we can just run,' Yamcha suggested. 'Let's avoid a fight if we can.'

'Run where, though?' Tien asked. 'We don't know where we're going- we don't know how to get to Bulma- Look out!'

Tien was too slow to give his warning as the back of a fist crashed against Yamcha's face, causing a gush of red blood to splash down his body while he spun into a crater against the nearest wall. With wisps of smoke trailing off of his bulging muscles, Nappa emerged out into the open. A sadistic smile was carved into his face. 'Found you.'

With a yell, Tien then closed the gap between him and Nappa and unleashed a rapid series of blows- but Nappa dodged nimbly for his size, and let the occasional blow smack ineffectually into his chiseled body. He was made for war- he was war incarnate. Tien tried to land a heavy kick against Nappa's chest, but the hulking Saiyan grabbed the leg with both hands, gave a sick smile, and then smashed the palm of his hand against Tien's own chest. An audible sound cracckk rang out as pieces of Tien's armor whirled away and the human's body made a crater of his own with a different side of the corridor from Yamcha's.

Nappa stood there, unusually patient- or perhaps punishing- for his opponents to gather themselves. 'I always thought you two were scum,' Nappa said derisively as his two opponent succeeded in freeing themselves. 'You aren't even good enough to clean my boots!'

That riled them; Tien and Yamcha charged together, and to Nappa's surprise displayed an impressive amount of teamwork, but they were still weak- Nappa might have had to tank a few more blows than he would have liked, but they didn't come close to threatening him.

At one point, however, Tien and Yamcha arranged themselves in a line and charged him- but when Tien was about to land a blow against Nappa's guard, he faded into nothing and Yamcha charged in after the fading image, slamming a knee into the underside of Nappa's jaw. Caught off-guard, Nappa then felt a quick series of blows land against him from behind targeting his lower back.

He quickly twisted halfway around, such that his right side of his body was facing Yamcha and his left side was facing Tien, and knocked Tien's hands away at the wrists. Before Yamcha could exploit this, Nappa surged to his right and placed his full weight on Yamcha's armor, pushing the Earthling to the floor and trapping him, and with incredible finesse, the Saiyan lifted his body up by that arm and delivered a quick one-two kick to Tien's guard. The first hit broke open Tien's defenses- the second landed on Tien's unprepared left arm and wrenched his arm painfully away from his body. Disappointedly, Nappa did not hear the tell-tale sound of an arm socket dislocating.

A glow coming from below alerted him- though still trapped, Yamcha had planted his arms on Nappa's chest. 'Haaaygh!' He hollered, as a full wall of ki, more forceful than painful, flung Nappa off of his captive and smacked him against the hallway's ceiling. Nappa landed back to the ground on both feet a few seconds later, but in that time Yamcha had rolled away and risen to one knee. 'You know, you don't fight half as smart as Raditz.' The Earthling spat. 'You're all dumb strength-'

Nappa viciously surged forward and planted a foot on Yamcha's half-risen body, slamming him back to the floor and cutting off his speech. 'You only speak when I want you to!' he yelled, feeling for the first time in this fight that he was losing his temper- which wouldn't do, because there were stipulations he had to abide by-

Curiously, Nappa heard the sound of something puncturing metal from behind him. When he turned, he saw Tien retrieving a hand from a hole in the wall to his right- natural as opposed to artificial light was now bathing the hallway- and was splaying both hands in front of his face.

'SOLAR FLARE!' Tien yelled, causing a bright flash of light to momentarily consume the space.

Scoffing, Nappa quickly turned back around, eyes wide open, and caught Yamcha's fist squarely in his hand. 'I've seen this trick before, Cyclops!' he taunted over his shoulder. Suddenly, Nappa felt a ring of arms clamp around his neck and attempt to restrain him. 'Haha!' The saiyan ably shifted his weight and flung Tien's body above and forward like a swinging weight. 'I'm starting to enjoy this!'

Though Nappa had intended to hit the Earthling in front of him with his friend's helpless body, Yamcha moved quick enough and stepped forward, missing Tien's flailing form. Before Nappa knew what was happening, the hand in his palm started to shake, and dark blue aura started to erupt around Yamcha's body, and the Earthling before him swung another punch that Nappa caught, albeit with more effort he had used previously. Yamcha's strength seemed to increase in tandem with the swirling azure colors raging around him.

'WOLF FANG FIST!' As soon as the words left Yamcha's mouth, the force pressing against Nappa doubled, forcing the old Saiyan to slam his feet to the ground and call upon a larger reserve of power. He wasn't surprised- he was impressed! These Earthlings had a penchant for giving a good battle!

The force, of course, wasn't enough to overwhelm Nappa, however. The blue light around the Earthling flickered and burned, but when pressed against an unmoving object such as him, it could do nothing but sputter and die.

Yamcha huffed, locked arm-to-arm with Nappa, and felt the Saiyan brute slowly edge out the last remains of Yamcha's temporary boost of power. He felt Tien struggle to his feet behind him, knowing that he would be too slow to prevent Nappa from savaging him-

A shuddering vibration unexpectedly seized Nappa, causing the Saiyan to choke and momentarily lessen the strength of his opposing force.

This was all the scarred fighter had needed- with stunning speed, his blue-lit form dislodged itself from Nappa's grip and knocked each arm to either side, and raised one hand over his head and jumped. Nappa was still stunned when Yamcha's mid-air form smashed a claw hand tipped with blue talons of ki against Nappa's head from above, snapping the Saiyan's head down and ramming it into his own chest. Yamcha then unleashed a hailstorm of blows, visibly impacting Nappa's body in the gut, abdomen, arms, and chest, driving him back, giving his opponent no chance to recover his senses. He finished with a two-handed clenched fist, his blue outline reaching a peaking intensity and streaking with his attacks, as he threw his full weight behind it and swung it into Nappa's gut, launching the Saiyan clear across the corridor and smashing him into the far wall nearly fifty feet away.

It was only when the Saiyan had passed the farthest juncture between this corridor and an intersecting one did Yamcha see the cause of Nappa's momentary lapse- standing resolutely with one smoking hand outstretched towards them, Bez gave them a wary look.

'You're looking for your friend, right?' the purple alien said hurriedly, lowering his arm in the same measure. 'She was taken to one of the shuttles. I know the way.'

There really wasn't any time for Tien and Yamcha to object- Nappa's stirring at the far end of the hall indicated that they couldn't stay here any longer. When Bez rushed past them, they followed.

0o0o0

Bulma had listened to the storm of destruction, had put her mind out there, imagining every single awful thing that could be happening to Tien and Yamcha upon the clap of every explosion, even as she prepared the ship for launch. There was the selfish part of her, the part that had first set off in search for as silly a legend as Dragonballs and their ability to conjure for her a perfect boyfriend, that whispered in her ear to go. She was presented with her first opportunity to escape this hell- given to her immediately after her ultimate fate in space as something to be herded, a resource, was revealed to her. All she had to do was abandon her friends, who, most likely, were already dead. She was going to Namek to restore the Earth's dragonballs, after all- if they were dead, she could bring them back, even if they-

And that was why the thought got no further than that. For although she could imagine her actions as being ultimately optimal, she would never forgive herself is she left without Tien and Yamcha. She was too old, and more importantly, too afraid to do that.

Thus, while her hands flew across the ship's controls, her mind and ears were directed outside of the cockpit to the ramp, listening for any sound that might indicate to her who was coming.

She lived through a thousand nightmares; too many times she thought she heard the heavy walk of Nappa, or the small, controlled steps of Vegeta. But the worst nightmare came when she heard three pairs of footsteps, conjuring the image of a bloodthirsty gang of PTO soldiers, angry and ready to imprison her, or worse-

Turning with horrible dread, she looked through the doorway to the cockpit- but it was them. Tien and Yamcha and a purple alien all rushed up the ramp, breathless, injured, but alive, and staring at her with an incredible mix of relief and concern. She had not thought it possible for a human face to display two wholly contradictory emotions at once.

This entire time she had been working on blind, irrational hope; but she had been right to do so. They had found her, somehow. Without wasting a moment- not even to greet them- she raised the ramp and lifted the shuttle off of the landing pad. They were spaceborne soon after.

0o0o0

The scene was silent, quiet, and Vegeta took his time examining every bit of it. Annihilation was peaceful.

He rose from a crouch and let the dust slip past his gloved fingers. There was something oddly beautiful to how matter could be reduced to ashes- it required a perfect application of power to reduce something to only its basest, most simple form through destruction, but not to go so far to eradicate the thing entirely. It was the mark of a being supremely possessed of its power, and not beholden to any restraints or arbitrary limitations. So if Vegeta so desired to turn living beings into ash, he would do it.

He heard Nappa approach, his heavy, well-trodden footsteps long a presence in Vegeta's mind, before he spoke. 'They escaped, Vegeta,' Nappa informed him.

Vegeta nodded and turned to Nappa with a critical eye. 'You look wounded,' he noted.

'They got one good hit on me,' Nappa growled. 'I'm not too proud to admit it.'

'Be sure to not let it happen again.'

Nappa was coyed, and said nothing more. Lifting his gaze from his companion, Vegeta turned again to the dust set in a pile before him, crouched down and ran his hand through it once more, and then stood and dispersed it by stomping a heavy boot through it. 'We were right to trust the woman, it seems,' he said, revolving to fully face Nappa. 'I am, admittedly, impressed that she was able to pilot the ship off the planet.'

'The Earthlings are an impressive bunch,' Nappa ventured, 'or at least this particular group. I can understand why they gave Raditz trouble, now.'

Vegeta halted in his examination of the base- it was nearly leveled now, though not quite- and slowly set his gaze on Nappa. 'You don't really mean that, Nappa, do you?'

The larger Saiyan was silent for a time. 'Impressive scum are still scum.'

While Vegeta was left to consider this- he knew there was more to what Nappa was saying, though he suspected it was just dumb aggression being dressed up to please him- the sound of someone approaching over the blasted ground surrounding them, presented to them as frantic clunks on the seared, pack dirt, reached his ears.

He turned to face the direction the sound came from, and waited.

0o0o0

Planthorr was huffing, his old body weak and weary from the rare exercise running entailed, but there was nothing to be done- he had a schedule to keep to. He spun around a corner, edged around a deserted cart, ignored a string of dead bodies lying on the ground, flung himself around another corner, and then broke into open ground, undoubtedly flattened by an impossibly strong blast of energy, that was featureless in the worst possible way. Planthorr had never had the experience of traveling to a recently purged planet, but he imagined this to be much like what he would have seen there.

Running taxed him, weakened him, but still, he forced himself up a small hill in front of him, rushing as fast as his old flesh and bones could take him. He was moving so fast, and had dedicated such a large amount of his cognition to maintaining his pace, that he very nearly collided into Prince Vegeta; but perhaps, his mind decided, "collide" is the wrong word to use here. He was more akin to a meteorite striking a planet- one side was bothered, the other, annihilated.

Nappa was hanging at his Prince's side like a chained dog, and sneered at the lowly doctor.

Trembling, Planthorr wasted no time in producing a square device and handing it to Prince Vegeta. 'Here it is,' he said quickly, still out of breath. 'Interface this with any console and it'll run a program that'll track their progress and, when they land, inform you of that planet's interstellar coordinates.'

Vegeta held the device and idly examined it. 'And you said this would be untraceable? That no-one would know that I had used this with a console and subsequently walked away?'

'Completely untraceable,' Planthorr assured Vegeta. 'Whoever doesn't have this device won't know where they're going, period. All the other identifying marks were removed from the ship over the past week.'

For a time, Vegeta continued to examine the device, giving Planthorr the horrible suspicion that he was living through the last moments of his life- but then Vegeta pocketed the square object and palmed a device of his own into Planthorr's clammy hands. 'You've done well for yourself, doctor.' He said with an unidentifiable quality- was it admiration, or simple recognition? 'I rarely say this to those not of my own kind- but you have my thanks.'

Numbly, Planthorr nodded, though he made sure to make those nods deep and reverent. He stood without saying anything, but then realized that this was probably his cue to leave, and so he began to back away-

'I killed many people today,' Vegeta said, staring down Planthorr. 'I want you to know that you were not one of them.'

The doctor couldn't look at Vegeta- he was afraid of too much, of the Saiyan, of himself, and could only nod with his thoughts somewhere far away from where he was currently. 'Thank you, Prince Vegeta. You are… benevolent.'

'Good. You have your galactic credits and your pod is just at the base of this hill. Now go.'

Planthorr receded without a sound, and Vegeta and Nappa spent their time in silence, listening to the doctor's slightly less frantic footsteps fade away.

After Vegeta heard the sound of Planthorr's pod lift and shoot off into the sky from behind him, he addressed Nappa: 'You made sure to destroy all the other ships, correct?'

'It was the first thing I did after chaining the Earthling woman,' he answered. 'The only ships left on this blasted rock are the two I stowed away for ourselves in the gorge.'

'Good,' Vegeta said somewhat distantly, his eyes centered on some of the wildfires now spreading across the remains of the base. 'This has gone better than I expected. I would have thought rebelling against the only authority I had ever prostrated to would have been hard, but this-' he swept his hand over the horizon- 'this does not deserve our loyalty. Frieza would not deserve our loyalty if he was not stronger than us. To exist in this galaxy is a constant struggle, and I see now that this struggle has blinded me. Frieza had blinded me.'

Silence then reigned among them, and during this, Nappa was curious about what was going on in the Prince's mind. As Vegeta grew older, there was more that Nappa could not understand of Vegeta's behavior, which is not to say that he did not know him; he simply existed on a plane separate from Nappa. As it should be- he is, and very likely would be, the last leader of the Saiyans before they exited existence forever.

'Today felt good, did it not, Nappa?'

'It did,' Nappa agreed.

'I hope that many more days like this await us in the future.' Vegeta sighed. 'Until then…'

'And now?...'

'We have a few more hours until Cui lands,' Vegeta told Nappa. 'My scouter informs me that there are a few more people out there, hiding or dying-' he turned to Nappa '-would you like to do the honors?'

At the suggestion, a broad smile broke out across Nappa's face, and with the grandeur of a champion called upon to fight for his lord, he strode out to the center of the hill. 'I think you'll like this one, Vegeta. I've improved this move since that swamp world we went to.'

'The one with the weaponized vegetation that tried to entrap us?'

'The very same.' And then, with an incremental flick of a finger, the entire landscape exploded.

0o0o0

In the end, there was nothing left of the base except for the landing pads- they were, in the grand design of most outposts, situated on the far ends of the site, and Nappa had had the good sense to exclude most of them. It would be easier for them to meet Cui where they would land, and control the narrative from the very beginning.

When the ship inevitably streaked through the sky, Vegeta and Nappa, wearing armor self-inflicted with battle damage, flew over to the landing site. It was, coincidentally, one of the best-situated landing pads the base had had- it overlooked some of this planet's most striking vistas on one side, and on the other, overlooked the rest of the base from a small hill.

So when the hatch to Cui's ship opened and that smug sycophant stepped proudly out of his ship, Vegeta was present and savored the look of utter shock plastered across the alien's stupid violet face. Just as he had planned, Cui's attention was gripped by the barely visible remains of the base.

'What- What happened?' Cui blubbered.

'We were attacked by a fearsome force, who left once destroying this base,' Vegeta quickly said to Cui. We… couldn't stop them,' he said faux-ashamed, making a show of his and Nappa's heavily damaged armor. 'But we were able to place a tracker on their ship. We know where they're going.'

Cui, who to Vegeta had always looked like a fish, looked even more like one whenever they made an absurd expression of surprise. 'How?' they asked, baffled. 'Who were they?'

For a stretch of time- a long one- Vegeta had his eyes locked with Nappa, each one reflecting on the other. Then, Vegeta turned back to Cui and said, 'They were… rogue Saiyans…'


A/N: That's the end of Outlanders, then! The Namek saga is on its way in a substantially different form! But jeez- this is gonna be super fun. Cannot wait for things to rocket into high-gear! A lot of people are gonna get some badass moments after the more character driven action (I guess?) of last arc. Expect a lot of "throw-down-ing" to occur in the near future.

Also reviews! Give me reviews! I love reviews! Wowie!

One last thing. I usually put review responses at the bottom of the next chapter, but if people want me to give responses via PM for those with accounts, I can do that too. Just tell me yes/no to the idea in a review.

power levels

Master Roshi: 40,000

Vegeta: 18,000

Nappa: 4,000

Tien: 1,800

Yamcha: 2,000

Bez: 1,700

Reviews:

Luke: Things did indeed move quickly. Poor lads at FP083.

LWexe: Stuff happened. Like, a lot. Cheers.

Anonymous: Thank you for your enthusiasm! Thank you for reading that long! Holey moley! I've got a lot of cool ideas coming up, but what else is new ;^)