Namek

Chapter 56: The Spoils of War


There was a rush of movement, sounded by a flurry of feet smacking against rough and smooth stone. Deep within the cave, it was totally dark except for one spot; adjacent to the snake-like passage that ran from outside into the formation's gut, the faintest slivers of light bounced and died within the cave.

It was there where Bulma hobbled out of the passage into the cave's recesses, and peering further into the unwelcoming, darkened extent of the chamber, she spun. 'Just a bit further!' she yelled, audibly wracked with tension.

More sounds, and a moment later Tien and Yamcha emerged into the gloom next to her, holding Bez's limp body between them. With care and directed by Bulma's gestures, they moved over to one of the walls of the cave and gently laid him down. They then set out to remove his armor- which was difficult, as the blood has been flowing from the large wound in his chest for a while now and was drying like plaster between his skin and his outer armor. As carefully and quickly as they could manage, they pried the pieces away and left him clothed in nothing more than his black jumpsuit.

This was Bulma's cue to act- but when she fell to her knees before his body, her own hands smeared with crusty pink blood, she hung her head towards her lap. 'I… I don't know what to do,' she admitted, her left arm twisted, hanging painfully at her side, while her right arm rested ineffectively on Bez's barely moving chest. 'I don't know what to do.'

Behind her she heard the noises of shifting- she glanced behind her and saw that both Tien and Yamcha had collapsed onto their backs and butts, propped against the opposite walls. 'What are we supposed to do?' She repeated, pleading.

She got no response, and when she glanced behind her again, she adjusted her initial assessment- Yamcha had placed his arms vertically behind him, propping his body away from the wall, and winced with every slight tremble of his back. Tien was probing his chest for anything broken, and his face alternated between different clenched and gritted expressions. 'I don't know,' the latter finally muttered harshly, his voice laced with a fraction of the pain he felt.

'Can't we move him somewhere?' Bulma suggested. 'Maybe bring him to the Namekians?'

'He'll die,' Yamcha said quietly. 'It's a miracle that he survived the trip here.'

'And they wouldn't help us,' Tien piled on. 'Those cold-hearted bastards made that clear enough.'

Tien's words thrummed against the walls of the cave, and in its wake, a pause settled. Through the gloom, Bulma could see that her companions were vaguely distracted.

'You feel it too, right?' Yamcha asked, inclining his head towards Tien.

Tien coughed. 'I couldn't sense it clearly before- but this planet is crawling with PTO now,' he said. 'I don't think anyone beyond Cui noticed us running here, but if we leave and try and run to the Namekians, no doubt we'd be intercepted by some of them.' Tien then turned away, purposefully looking into the dark gloom of the cave. 'And there's no way we could fend off even their weakest soldiers in our current conditions. We're stuck.'

'So what,' Bulma said, upset, 'we stay here and wait? Wait for Bez to die?'

'You know that's not what we're saying, Bulma,' Yamcha said in a consoling tone. 'We would never choose that.'

'How can you two be so morbid? Give up so easily?' Bulma asked, and she noted that her voice was expressing her frustration through accusations instead of pleas. 'Until he dies there must be something we can do!'

'Bulma, it's a miracle that we're even here,' Tien said, his voice reverberating off of the cave's walls. 'If that fight had dragged on any longer, Yamcha and I would be lying dead underneath that alien's boot or worse. At the very least, we're… us… are safe.'

'And Bez would have died either way,' Bulma said bitterly.

Yamcha gasped and sucked in a lungful of air. 'But we're still here. Which means we can still get the dragonballs and fix this- we could revive him if we make it through this.'

Bulma went quiet for a time, and briefly, Yamcha felt that he had gotten through to her. But then he spied her moving even closer to Bez's broken body. 'Is that supposed to make me feel better?' she whispered. 'Because it doesn't. It feels like my heart is being eaten by my stomach.' She whipped her head around to them. 'He saved me, you know,' she said, weakly rubbing her good arm against her tear-laded cheeks. 'There were other soldiers who were- who were- I don't know what they were going to do to me. But Bez stepped in and killed them, and then threw himself in front of a blast meant for me. So you could say that I owe him; I owe it to him to not let him bleed out while I do nothing.'

The silence that followed was deafening.

'I wish you hadn't told us that,' Yamcha said finally, sounding more hurt by what she had told them than the sum total of every blow Cui had bashed into his body.

'Well, now you know,' Bulma snapped. 'So, then-'

She stopped abruptly. Tien and Yamcha glanced over to her and saw, even in the gloom, that her eyes were wide and she was sitting up straight. After another second, she rushed to her feet. 'Someone's here,' she said in the quietest whisper she could manage. 'I can hear someone moving in the passage.'

Alerted, Tien and Yamcha clumsily got to their feet and began to rush over to the passage's opening- but someone stepped out of it before they could reach it. Their gazes, aimed at someone around their height, missed their intended target. A Namekian, half their height and resembling a human child, stared up at them and extended a hand. 'Hi,' he said. 'My name is Dende.'

Yamcha and Tien stood perplexed for a moment, but then Yamcha bent over, gripped Dende's hand, and shook the little kid with enough residual adrenaline to slightly wobble the green antenna sticking out of his forehead. 'Hi… Dende,' he said.

'What are you doing here?' Tien asked.

'I was sent by my village's elder, Moori, to find you all' Dende explained. His eyes then flitted over to Bulma and the shadowed shape she was watching over. Without saying anything, he brushed past them and strode over to her.

'What are you?-' Bulma began, but a reassuring smile and a gentle hand wave placated her and maneuvered her away from Bez. Dende extended his small green hands over Bez's near-still body, closed his eyes, and began to hum. In the next moment, round green waves of aura rolled out from his palms and lapped against Bez's grievous chest wound. Amazingly, the pink blood stained his chest began to wipe away from existence, replaced by new and healthy looking purple flesh. In a matter of seconds the wound disappeared entirely, leaving behind the hole in Bez's black jumpsuit as the only indicator that he had been on death's door.

Then it was over and Dende sat back, folding his hands in his lap. 'He was heavily injured, so it will take him some time to regain consciousness,' he said.

'What did you do?' Tien managed, standing over Dende's shoulder alongside Yamcha like the helpless onlookers that they were.

'I healed him.' Dende took a moment to look at Bulma and Tien and Yamcha. 'I see that the rest of you are injured as well,' he said calmly, placidly, as serene as the life-giving energy he had just effortlessly placed inside Bez. 'I will do my best to heal you all now- but please, once I am done, we must return to my people as quickly as possible.'

'Why?' Yamcha spoke up. 'I don't understand- why were you sent after us in the first place?'

'Things have changed,' Dende said ominously, frowning. 'You shall see as much when you return.'

0o0o0

The lake in the center of the island remained level and calm for minutes after its disturbance, even while droplets of water still descended from the massive, unnatural cloud of mist that now occupied the sky above it. Bit-by-bit, however, a rumbling started to disturb its restive state, until suddenly two hands burst out from beneath the waterline and gripped the land at the water's edge. These two white-gloved hands struggled for a moment to find something to grip, but once they clasped onto a jutting rock embedded in the ground that tapered into a thick slab of white, they clenched and pulled. Cui, desperately sucking in air, pulled themselves up to their torso out of the water and onto land. They halted briefly, felt their lungs burn from their sweet, needed embrace with the world, and then did one last pull and hauled their legs out. Like a dead fish they rolled over onto their back next to the lake, sopping wet, and panted.

'Damn it…' they hissed. Their right hand, which had previously been fingering the manifold of new cracks and chips in their armor, now snaked up to their head and groped an empty space over their left eye. Failing to grasp anything, they emphatically flopped the arm back down.

0o0o0

His hands gripped the side of the holographic table hard enough to rip it out from the floor. It was only through the conscious and continual exercise of his will did Zarbon not.

Under his watchful gaze, things had gone well- according to plan- at first. Ships had descended to the planet in unison and landed without issue, spilling out soldiers in blue-green clumps that slowly encircled the yellow circles marking native settlements on the table's projected map. While he hadn't commanded any unneeded confrontation, he had made sure that there would be no holes in his net. If the renegades were hidden among the natives, they would either be found immediately or forced out into the open. He had been under the impression that his plan was foolproof.

He was wrong. When he returned from his debriefing with Frieza which, by custom, took place in the ship's sparse and lonely residential quarters reserved for the commanding officer, he discovered that chaos raged amongst his army. A score of his troops were either out of place or gone from the map- which meant, effectively, that their scouters weren't reporting to him, and they were either damaged or destroyed along with their owners. Sensor readings had decreased across the board- his men and the natives were killing each other. And, most insufferably at all, he was taking losses- losing soldiers- against weak natives that he shouldn't be capable of doing so. There were here to find a group of renegade Saiyans. Why had a full-blown war broken out?

It was evident that, either due to his laziness or his incompetence, Dodoria had let things slip out of his control. At the next possible occasion Zarbon was liable to kill him, if only to force to a more competent officer into his place.

But Dodoria was, like about a third of his army, missing in action, too. His scouter's signal had disappeared along with every other lifeform reading from the settlement where he had been sent to. What the hell was he supposed to make of that? Both his soldiers and the natives are gone? Did they kill each other in totality!?

He had made a mess- no, his soldiers had made a mess. He had hoped that superior numbers would have overcome their initial lack of information, but it was now obvious that his disregard for gathering any intelligence of his own had cost him dearly. The entire chain of command, due to Cui being MIA as well, was broken, and the petty squad leaders, while holding their own, were about as useful as a blade without a handle. Things- something needed to be done-

'Call them back,' Zarbon said abruptly, causing a number of heads on the bridge to turn to him. In front of him, the green-white planet, which before had been properly and excruciatingly framed by the blackness of space beyond, now tauntingly hung just beyond his reach. He momentarily saw his own dead body, mangled and blotched, hung in the planet's place by a sadistically satisfied hand-

The immediate lack of a response to his command, perpetuated by the slack-jawed expressions of his officers, infuriated Zarbon. 'Need I do it myself!?' He snarled. 'Call them back!'

That final push jostled the bridge into motion, and soon enough, he heard his order be relayed down to his surviving forces on the planet. With a grimace, he swung his head and flipped his ponytail over his shoulder and down his back. Its binding nearly came undone from that simple, aggravated gesture.

He hadn't wanted to wait… but, now, he would be forced to.

0o0o0

Chi-Chi cupped the hot, steaming mug of tea in her hands, brought it to her mouth, and took a deep inhale. 'Thanks,' she said, audibly relaxing. 'I needed this.'

Nearby, reclined on a different couch in much the same pose as Chi-Chi, Rayne accepted a cup of tea of her own from Puar. The shapeshifter, guised as a human man, did a curt bow before turning and handing the last drink in her hand to the Ox-King situated on the third and last couch in the room.

The living room they were in was one of the last untouched and furnished ones left in the entire Fire Mountain castle. The damage done by Garlic Jr's brief tenure as world dominator a few months back was still be repaired by the odd repairmen from the village at the mountain's base. Even now, as they blew on their hot tea, one could hear a pair of footsteps prowl past the room in the adjacent hallway every few minutes or so. But this room was one of the nicer ones even before the Black Water Mist's destructive arrival- the castle's grey and brown palette was well complemented by the stone-red and dark brown colors that adhered to the furniture and the walls.

Having finished distributing her tea, Puar plunked down on the couch next to Chi-Chi and stretched. 'You've been under a lot of stress,' she replied to Chi-Chi's comment. 'It's my pleasure.'

Chi-Chi hmmed and took a tentative, calm sip of her tea.

'Do you feel better, Mr… Ox? Mr. Ox, is it?' Rayne asked.

The Ox-King chuckled and gave a hearty nod. 'Ox-King or Mr. Ox- it doesn't matter to me. And I do. The sun was a real killer today.' He adjusted his sitting position on the couch- which was twice as big as all the other pieces of furniture in the room- and elicited a mighty groan from the stitching and wood beneath him. 'Though I shouldn't be so quick to discount your little rascal, Chi-Chi. All that running around that he and that dragon did really wore me out…'

'Mmm.' Chi-Chi took another sip of her tea, then leaned forward and placed the cup of tea on a low table in front of her. 'Tell me, dad- how strong do you think Gohan is?'

The Ox-King glanced at her. 'Strong? Pretty strong, I'd guess.'

'You think he's stronger than you?'

He frowned, then shrugged. 'Sure, maybe. Well, actually, you should know, right? You were always better at ki sensing than me. You take after your mother in that regard.'

'True.' Chi-Chi briefly looked over at Rayne, who seemed to be enjoying her tea, and Puar, who was continuing her stretches. 'Dad- isn't it crazy that he might be stronger than you? At not even two years old?'

'It is. He's a strong tyke.'

'And how strong do you think he'll be when he's your age?'

The Ox-King scratched his big, bushy beard. 'Are you saying what I think you're saying, dear?' he asked. 'Because, you know, I was in favor of training him from the very beginning.'

'I know,' Chi-Chi said in a meek manner. 'I wasn't sure before… but, after everything's that happened, that's happening, nothing feels as sure as it once did. I think there was a time when living amongst enemies didn't make me scared because I thought we could overcome them if need be. But, even in those situations where we eventually came out on top… we lost some people in the process. Our victory against Raditz was no sure thing. Bulma, Tien, and Yamcha's journey to Namek was no sure thing.' She kneaded the space between her eyes with two fingers. 'We need to be better prepared for what the future might bring than we have been in the past. And that includes preparing Gohan.'

'Just to put in my two cents,' Rayne spoke up, 'I agree with that sentiment.'

'I do too, dear,' the Ox-King chimed in.

Chi-Chi looked at them, then picked up her cup of tea and downed the entire thing in one go. 'Did you guys know that Gohan saved my life against Raditz?'

They balked at her. Rayne whistled. 'Really?'

'Dear,' the Ox-King said carefully, 'you do mean that- if what you told me about that Saiyan was true- that would make Gohan very strong.'

'Yup.'

Puar finished stretching and stood. 'You sound like you have a special kid, Chi-Chi.'

She smiled proudly. 'I do.'

0o0o0

In a room just down the hall, Oolong stepped back from the open window. As soon as he did this, a small purple dragon, no more than a fledgling, clambered through the window and padded over to Gohan's crib. Gohan clutched his hands towards the dragon in anticipation, and when the dragon crawled into his crib, he ably floated onto the dragon's back and began to coo and cheer as he was gently bucked up and down like a bull rider.

Oolong quietly crept back over to the window, closed it, and settled his back onto the windowsill. No-one had to know… 'It's just our little secret, right you two?'

They didn't respond- they barely even noticed that he was still in the room.

'Just adorable…'

0o0o0

They had seen the land surrounding Guru's hall be swarmed by Namekians before- but the scene before Tien, Yamcha, and Bulma as they were led closer by their Namekian guide Dende was, despite initial appearances, utterly different. There was nothing left of the sanctified atmosphere that had enveloped the spire just a few hours ago. Despondent crying and despair had taken its place, as every Namekian present, pressed against each other either from terror or reassurance, together created such an overwhelming wave of misery that the humans struggled to not join in with them. Bez, at this point, was awake in Tien's arms, and was similarly affected.

'This has become our port in the storm,' Dende said. 'while the rest of our planet floats on a sea of fire.'

Bulma looked at Tien and Yamcha. None of them said anything.

For his age, Dende held both himself and them together well once they touched down into the crowd. The Namekians noticeably quieted as they passed through the crowd and made their way to the hall. Icy stares began to fall upon them. When they reached the entrance of the hall, two Namekians who looked to have been farmers just a few hours before snarled and stepped into their paths. But Dende assuaged them, speaking to them in the same jagged and fluid speech that Bulma, Tien, and Yamcha had heard when they had first arrived, and soon enough, they were inside.

Guru's hall had lost none of its depressing qualities. It was dark and gloomy inside, and reflected the four Namekians gathered around Guru well. Nail was immediately recognizable by his martial posture and the small distance he maintained from the others. It took Tien longer to recognize the three others as Moori and two of the village elders he had met earlier in the day. He… he imagined that the kind faces from the four other Namekian elders from his memory would look anything but if he ever stumbled on them again. Such a heavy toll...

The present elders seemed to recognize him in turn. They both drew Moori's attention from a quiet conversation with Guru and forced him to face them. His face seemed to have aged ten years in the course of a day. 'The harbingers from Earth still live and have returned to us,' he said mirthlessly. His eyes moved to their Namekian guide. 'You are brave, Dende, and you have my thanks.'

Dende nodded- exaggerated yet firm. It was the nod of a child trying to hold it together for the adults; it broke Bulma's heart.

'What happened?' Yamcha asked, though he had already begun to piece together an answer to his question.

Moori fully turned to them. In the process, he removed his hands from Guru's right arm. 'What happened was that you were right, of course,' he said caustically. 'This PTO did not discriminate a race of peaceful caretakers from their prey. Within minutes of entering our villages, they began to slaughter us. None were spared.' His gaze painfully lingered on them. 'Not even the children.'

So...

'Two villages were utterly destroyed, two more were decimated, and three escaped with only a few dead. At the beginning of today, our people numbered close to 100. Now, less than half are huddled refugees atop this spire. That was the price taken from us to temporarily repel these monsters.' Moori made a disgusted face at them. 'And everything on this spire is the extent of the devastation you have brought upon us.'

'Is that why everyone outside looked ready to murder us?' Tien asked. 'You know that we never meant for this to happen-'

'You are dressed the same as the invaders,' Moori said severely. 'Our people have suffered greatly at the hands of people who look like you. If you are kind, you will forgive their hostility.'

'We can do better than that,' Yamcha said, assuming a determined nature with his posture and voice. 'The PTO are no friends of ours- if we pool our strength, there's no doubt in my mind that we can defeat them.'

Moori looked at Yamcha for a moment, then slowly moved his gaze towards Nail to his right. The warrior stared at Moori before addressing them. 'You three are fighters,' he said in a detached manner- but his hands twitched every so often. 'I don't care what hand you had in creating this mess. If you can help me protect our people, I will gladly accept your help. Though… we will have to discuss this later.' Nail abruptly looked back to Moori. 'There is a more pressing matter that we must deal with first.'

Moori had turned back to Guru, and they could see now that he was doing something strange. In a ritual-like manner, the Namekian elder stroked and clasped his hands with Guru's right arm and hand over and over again. Guru himself seemed distant, though his lips seemed to be reciting an inaudible, never-ending line of speech.

'The unprovoked and sudden attack on our people has done irreparable damage to Guru's health,' Moori said flatly. 'Within the hour he will die. So we are now preparing for his passing.'

'Wait,' Bulma spoke up, alarmed, 'that means- the dragonballs! If Guru dies, the dragonballs become inert!'

'The dragonballs are not unique to Guru,' Moori reassured her. 'They are unique to the Namekians, and if all goes well, I will become their new guardian. But, until then…'

'We ask that you leave,' Nail said gruffly.

0o0o0

Tien, Yamcha, Bulma, and Bez were shunted from the hall with so much of an explanation of what was going to happen or how long they had to wait. Gathered outside, what was left of the Namekian race huddled atop the spire and, for all intents and purposes, seemed to despise them. So they thought it best to go somewhere else. Thus, a few minutes later, they landed amidst what had been Moori's village. It was now chillingly deserted.

They took turns idly examining the empty homes and intermittent signs of battle scattered around. A broken shovel. A half-crushed scouter. A shoe.

Bulma, collapsing onto the very same rock from which she had watched this village exist peacefully not too long ago, felt like she was going to throw up. 'What have we done to this planet? These people?' She said in a strained voice. 'All this destruction?... We're monsters…'

'The PTO would have done this to any planet,' Yamcha said morosely. 'They would have done this to this planet without us leading them here if given enough time. To them, Namek is just another planet… another contract.'

Bulma shook her head; she didn't want to be consoled. She wanted to feel bad. 'We don't deserve to be forgiven. How are we supposed to make this better when we've already done so much harm?' She asked.

Yamcha moved over to Bulma and sat on the rock with her. 'We can't change the past, Bulma… we can't change what we did. But agonizing over a past decision is just going to make it harder for us to repent for it in the future. At this moment, we have to help the Namekians in whatever way we can. I think… even after we get our wish, we have to stay and fight with them until their planet is safe.' Yamcha briefly looked at Tien, who nodded. 'It's the right thing to do.'

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Bulma took Yamcha in her arms and hugged him.

Tien watched this, then turned to examine the other person with them. Bez was standing near the edge of the village's center- away from the rest of them. Feeling an odd sympathy for him, Tien approached.

'You don't have to stew by yourself, you know,' he said.

Bez glanced at him, then looked away again. 'It's like I said before. We're stuck together until you drop me off somewhere.'

'If you say so.'

A grunt. 'It sounds like the natives are having a hard time of things right now.'

'They are. The PTO is ruthless. We both know that.'

'And what's this about "dragonballs?" What that guy said?'

'That's what we're here for.'

'Ah. So that's why we're still here.'

'And why our ship is still on the planet, yes. Why you're not somewhere else.'

'You know, I could take it and leave you three right now if I wanted to.'

'Yeah? What's stopping you?'

'A planetary blockade, for one,' Bez said, laughing bitterly.

'That's it?'

Bez looked at Tien, bit his lower lip, and shook his head.

Tien palmed his next words in his mind for some time before he expressed them. 'Thank you for what you've done,' he eventually said. 'For saving Bulma earlier, and doing the same for us back at FP083. We owe you our lives twice over.'

'Hmph. Keeping her alive served me, just the same as FP083,' Bez said, brushing off Tien's words. 'I can't have you and your friend breaking apart because she died. I need you two to get me off this planet alive.'

Tien stared at him and repressed an urge to scoff. 'Alright.' He began to walk away- but then he halted, and looked over his shoulder at Bez. 'One last thing- a word of advice. Identifying with your past deeds does nothing but poison your own mind. Move beyond them.' With that, he strode away.

The next few hours they spent idle, and idling, without saying much to each other. They were, to some degree, paranoid- but Tien and Yamcha felt the clump of powers orbiting the planet remain still for some time, and eventually, they began to let down their guard. Bulma looked the most out of the place out of all of them- with nothing to tinker with and no task to set herself on, her gaze was restless, and she took to pacing the edge of the village. Tien, Yamcha, and even Bez intermittently watched her.

When the moment came it took them by surprise- Guru's ki vanished in such a quick manner that Tien and Yamcha initially doubted that it had even happened. But they weren't given time to reflect, or speculate, on what their appropriate response should have been to the passing of an eminently great being who they had known for a little less than a day. Not too long after, they sighted four figures armed with seven orange dots slowly flying towards them.

0o0o0

Nail landed first in a manner that indicated that they should step back more. They obliged. In the next moment, Guru, flanked by the two elders from earlier, flew down to the center of the deserted village and gingerly placed the dragonballs down. Tien noticed that Bulma and Yamcha were surprised at, well-

'They're so big,' Bulma whispered into Yamcha's ear. 'Each one is bigger than my head.'

'Bigger than even mine,' he replied.

'Eh- what?' Bulma swung her hardening gaze at him. 'Did you just imply your head is bigger than mine?'

'Err… no?'

Bulma glared at him, then rolled her eyes. 'So you still have a habit of making ignoramus comments, huh? Why couldn't have Guru cured that, too?'

Yamcha, made horribly uncomfortable by a mindless comment he really should have thought through before he said it, gave her a nervous smile and scratched the back of his neck. 'Hah… haha...'

For his part, Tien ignored their side-conversation and stepped forward, putting himself at the front and closest to the Namekians. Behind them, he could sense Bez coming over.

He didn't really care about this development. He was surer than not that the former PTO soldier could be trusted. Himself and Yamcha were also stronger than the purple alien if he suddenly decided to make a mad grab for… for, the... uhh...

Hmm… what would Bez want for a wish? My gut wants to say "immortality"... but he doesn't fit that villain archetype at all. I wonder...

His mind wandered… and, sizing up Moori idly, he suddenly became aware of a massive change. An entirely different aura now wrapped itself around the Namekian elder. Whereas before he seemed grave and concerned, a calm had descended on his demeanor- though he was still visibly nervous. He touched each dragonball meticulously, as if both trying to calm them and himself, before turning to them. His mouth had formed a deep crease in his face. 'I am still coming to grips with this awesome responsibility… so I appreciate your patience.'

'The dragonballs?' Yamcha asked.

'Far more than that,' Nail said stiffly. 'Moori has inherited the memories and knowledge of Guru in totality. He now holds over five hundred years of history as seen by Guru… and however much Guru inherited from those who came before him.'

Moori weakly nodded. 'Indeed. It is… disorienting… to be burdened with so much knowledge in so short a time.' he said, clutching his forehead. 'There are matters of all sorts that now distract me… but I am acutely aware that an army still hangs around Namek like a noose. Time is of the essence.' He took a deep breath- evidently to calm himself- and then said: 'Before we summon the dragon, I wish to know- how many wishes do you require?'

'We need to revive two people,' Bulma said, 'our friends, as well a city's worth of people. So we'll use one wish to bring them all back. Then, hopefully, you can use the second wish for your people's safety.'

Nail narrowed his eyes at them; a murmur passed between the two elders behind Moori. 'What do you mean, one wish?' Moori asked.

Bulma frowned, then said slowly: 'Well, one wish can bring back an unlimited amount of people if we phrase the request right. So we only need the one.'

'Ah. I see.' Moori tightened his face and frowned. 'I am sorry that you have to learn of this now, on the threshold- but our dragon, Porunga, does not work like how you described. He cannot bring more than one person back to life at a time. I am afraid that your set of dragonballs is, in some capacities, better than ours.'

'A strange occurrence,' Nail commented.

Bulma, Tien, and Yamcha all collectively slumped. 'Really?' Bulma said, her voice thick with disbelief. 'And we only have two wishes?'

Moori paused. 'If Guru were still alive, Porunga would grant you three… but I was not as successful in asserting my power over him as Guru had done. I am afraid that, just as it was with your dragon, you will have two wishes, but each wish will only be able to bring back a single person.'

Bulma, downcast, rapidly reconsidered their options. 'So then… we won't be able to bring back everyone we need to with your dragon, Porunga,' she sought to clarify. 'We could revive our friends, but no-one else- right?'

'That is correct,' Moori confirmed.

Bulma thought a bit more. 'It's only important that we revive Kami,' She decided. 'Once he's alive again, we'll have our own dragonballs again, and we'll be able to revive our other friend and undo all the damage done to our planet through them. So, at a bare minimum, we need only one wish.'

'And that leaves you and your people a wish of your own,' Yamcha said encouragingly. 'You could use it to disarm or destroy the army threatening this planet.'

More murmurs came from the elders behind Moori. The two elders eyed them- and, unlike before, they actually stepped forward. 'We have discussed this matter extensively,' one said. 'Never before have we ever sought to use the dragonballs to ward off potential harm- we have only used them to correct grievous damage done in the past. Using the dragonballs' power to affect or prevent future harm is a more daunting task for our dragon, Porunga. Ultimately, we are skeptical that the dragonballs, acting through Moori's power, can do anything to enemies as strong as the ones we currently face.'

'It is as Tsuno says,' Moori agreed. 'They are limitations to the scope of Porunga's power. It is unlikely we could wish that every soldier that currently threatens us did not exist, for example, or that we could arrange a calamity that would eradicate them that would not also threaten us.'

'I don't understand…' Tien murmured. 'If the dragon can revive people, couldn't it kill people, too?'

The other elder now spoke. 'Magic is complicated… it is extremely useful for withstanding general or widespread forces, or plucking souls from another realm in the case of resurrection- but in cases where one individual or power fights against it, or if the magic is attacked in a very specific and localized manner, the burden comes unto the guarantor of the magic to defend the spell. And then it is a test of the strength for the possessor of the dragonballs. And Moori does not surpass those who threaten us.'

'Leera is right as well.' Moori said solemnly. 'And even if I was powerful enough to effect the death of our enemies, I could only do so one at a time. Thus, with one wish, I could hypothetically kill one person.'

'So there's nothing you can do with your own wish?' Yamcha questioned. 'What about some sort of trickery? Maybe make every soldier think the job is done and send them home?'

'A short-term solution as you've described may be effectual… but is assuredly the riskiest.'

'Which is to say?'

'The dragonballs may grant us permanent solutions without any risk,' Moori clarified, 'but that is not the case for short-term ones. Any wish that would completely ensure the safety of our people must be done when we are not under immediate danger… otherwise, we will invite further invasions of our planet when we are most vulnerable- when we cannot use the dragonballs to defend ourselves. Once used, we will have to wait some time before they can be used again.'

Bulma thought on this, then nodded. 'I see. So making a wish to provide a short-term solution will leave you defenseless to future attacks while the dragonballs aren't usable.'

'Precisely. We plan on holding onto our second wish until this crisis has passed.'

Bulma, Yamcha, and Tien collectively jumped. 'Wait-' Bulma said, furrowing her face, 'I thought- aren't we about to get our wish?'

'We cannot stop you from receiving what has been granted to you by Guru,' Moori said. 'That is why we brought the dragonballs here. But we hope that, upon hearing our plight, you'll choose to delay your use of them until this invasion has been repulsed.'

'Unless,' Nail spoke up, 'you could think of a way how you could use both wishes to help us.' He glanced over to Yamcha and Tien. 'Something that would help you fight alongside me in the next attack.'

The look and posture of the Namekian conveyed how helpful he thought they would be in a fight. He wasn't necessarily wrong- Yamcha and Tien could vaguely sense that Nail was, even after receiving their boosts, far stronger than them. Although… if anyone else could help it could be...

'Would Krillin be any use here?' Tien asked, turning to Yamcha and Bulma and forming a huddle.

'We can't revive him and bring him to Namek,' Bulma said. 'We only have two wishes, and we need to use at least one wish to bring back Kami.'

'Is this Kami a fighter?' Bez asked, walking up from behind and interjecting himself into their conversation. 'If so, he could be of use here in breaking this siege.'

'He isn't,' Tien replied. 'Though… wait…' His eyes swept over to Yamcha. 'Do you think Piccolo could be of some help?'

'Wait- you'd bring Piccolo here?' Bulma asked, paling. 'Don't you remember what he did at the 24th World Tournament?'

'I don't think we have any other options,' Tien asserted. 'I mean, we could bring back someone who's on Earth, but realistically, I don't think it's possible that anyone there is close to where Yamcha and I are.'

'And Piccolo is?' Yamcha said, doubtful.

'Don't you think it's possible that he's gotten stronger since then?'

'I wouldn't know,' Yamcha said curtly. 'That certainly wasn't my experience of the afterlife; I wasn't training.'

'But what if Piccolo's in hell?'

'... if that's true, you'd still be okay with him being brought here?...'

'He's also a Namekian,' Tien pressed. 'Could be there's an advantage he could gain here, on Namek, that would help us in a fight.'

'You sound overly optimistic.'

'You sound needlessly pessimistic.'

'Break it up, you two,' Bulma said, stepping in between them. 'How about this- we revive Kami-slash-Piccolo and then bring Piccolo here so that we can get our dragonballs back now instead of later. That way, we can split Shenron's wishes down the road; we use one for ourselves, and give one to the Namekians… just in case things get bad here later on. It's important that we revive Kami as soon as possible.'

'Your logic is sound,' Nail said, calling over from behind their huddle.

They swung back to the Namekians. 'You heard us?'

'Namekians have good hearing,' Moori informed them, gently probing one of his pointed green ears. 'The terms of your trade are acceptable. We will give you two wishes now, and we will use one of your dragon's wishes at a later point.' He extended a hand. 'Deal?'

Nail and the two other elders flinched. 'Moori, have you thought this through?' Tsuno asked, coming around to Moori's side. 'This will leave us defenseless until they have gathered their own dragonballs. It is risky!'

'I understand this,' Moori replied coolly.

'Then you would not accept their terms,' he pushed.

Moori didn't deign to look at Tsuno- he kept his hand extended towards Bulma. 'I admit that I have other reasons for agreeing to this. Guru's memories have made me curious… I want to meet one of these Earth Namekians. But that information is my privilege and burden as Grand Elder of the Namekian people; it is not to be revealed to you or anyone else except when I deem it necessary,' he finished firmly. 'So, I repeat; deal?'

Bulma ignored the shocked faces of the elders- even Nail seemed surprised by Moori's newfound willfulness- and examined Moori's hand. She took a moment to mentally go over the details of the offer, then sprung forward and seized it. 'Deal.'

Immediately upon her utterance and her shake of the Grand Elder's hand, Nail and two other elders bowed and started to withdraw from the center of the deserted village, while Moori turned his back to them and began to approach the collected dragonballs. Bulma, Tien, Yamcha, and Bez quickly followed the example set by the others and wandered over to their own end of the village's center clearing. Things moved quickly; as the sky began to darken in a familiar yet discomforting way, and a gentle glow began to throb from the seven collected balls, the pulse of each and every person present quickened.

Then, in a cathartic moment of release, a golden form shot out up from the balls and began to blot out of the sky. The humans, despite their familiarity with what was happening, moved closer to comfort each other.

'Yamcha?' Bulma asked of the person next to her quietly, as the dragon grew impossibly larger and made the sky impossibly blacker. 'I hope things are going to turn out okay.'

His eyes were plastered to the sky. 'I hope so, too.'

0o0o0

Metal rattled and rolled beneath them, swerving to and fro across the black fabric of space, and they, the professionals, the finishers, welcomed the discomfort. Slowly, each and every man, five in total, rolled and twisted in their pods, stretching their limbs and pricking their bodies out of forced sleep. It was a ritual of theirs- and enforced by their captain- that they did not talk to each other during this initial awakening. Every soldier, Captain Ginyu reflected, needed a moment to his own before the mission began.

Not an especially long one, though. 'Jeice,' he said. 'Sound-off.'

His lieutenant, Jeice, grumbled for a moment, but knew well enough not to keep him waiting. Groggily- 'Boys, get ready…'

'Ginyu!'

'Jeice!'

'Burter!'

'Guldo!'

'Recoome!'

'And,' Ginyu rejoined, 'together we are…'

In unison, they yelled- 'THE GINYU FORCE!'

Their voices reverberated in the small space of Ginyu's pod. One second… Two...

Captain Ginyu frowned. The cheer never sounded quite right when done without the accompaniment of their trademark poses; their physical artistry had a way of enhancing its sonic resonance. But it didn't matter; they would be reporting to that clown Zarbon soon enough, and then he would proudly present his company in a manner befitting their prestige.

Musing on this, he briefly examined the ship's navigation panel to his right before punching his fingers against the display and smiling.

'Men, we've been given the codes. Follow me in…'


A/N: This was one of the stranger and harder chapters for me to write. Also sorry that it's kind of on the short side. Expect this to be the last such one of the Namek Saga- it's going to a long, wild ride from now until the end.

Also reviews? What do ya think? HMMMM? (They never fail to brighten up my day, good or bad).

Reviews:

LWexe: Thank you!

Titanfire999: Haha! Glad to serve!