All Saiyans, even elites, were at the unpredictable mercy of moonlight in achieving their greatest natural-born power. Whether one could control it or not, becoming a Great Ape increased one's strength ten times over, making it a harbinger of destruction that few ordinary people could contend with. And somewhere along the line, a Saiyan had been clever enough to realize they could bypass waiting for natural Blutz waves and create some of their own.
The 'artificial moon,' as some called it: a small ball of ki that reacted specifically with a planet's atmosphere to mock the effects of a full lunar cycle. The technique was purportedly a substantial drain on a Saiyan's energy (aside from the transformation itself), but was much less of a risk if attacking in a group.
Even a single pair of Saiyans could pull it off if determined. Particularly if they were also engaging in a surprise attack on four unsuspecting PTO soldiers and one prince with both questionable loyalty to his companions and the ability to sense ki. Ki that, despite one of the incoming duo being stronger than the other, could contend against a Super Saiyan's.
As the roar of the Great Ape faded into echo, I realized that my legs were already moving – running in the direction of the sound, brain trying to catch up to formulate a plan. I could dimly hear the Arlian running after me, voice all squeaky with fear as it demanded to know what in the hell was that noise and nearly tripping over its own feet attempting to keep up with me.
We'd landed our ships near where the last Saiyan activity had been recorded on the planet. And it looked like they'd been waiting for us. Though I could only sense two so far, if they had the ability to hide their energy – since I hadn't sensed them until now – it was possible for there to be more. Two survivors here was better than zero, but still...
(It'd been so long since I'd seen another Saiyan, a real Saiyan, and even though I had Goku and Tarble it wasn't the same, wasn't even like how Father was –)
Flashes of light danced across the mushroom tops ahead of me, meaning the battle had already started. There were snips of movement too, but I couldn't focus on what was what from this distance. But I could feel the swirl of energies there.
Still in mid-run, I tore off my scouter and threw it away before reaching for the capsule on my necklace, tossing it into the air in an arc so that when the smoke burst and the sword fell, I caught it without losing stride and clipped the strap over my chest so that the blade rested in its natural place. Then, summoning my inner power, I became a Super Saiyan and moved onward with a surge of velocity.
Within half a minute I reached the field of battle, seeming as if it was unfolding before me.
Two Saiyans in ape form loomed over the mushroom forest, colossi in comparison to the soldiers trying to put up a fight around them. My companions – former companions, and I could only see two of them besides the Arlian– were darting around in the air trying to avoid the surprisingly fast movements of their opponents.
The Saiyans themselves were clearly distinguishable, armoured, one noticeably bigger than the other in both stature and power. The smaller one, however, seemed in less control of themselves, slashing around on all fours. There also seemed to be strange black markings on one side of their face, but I couldn't get a good look and my attention quickly shifted onto what in the hell I was supposed to do now.
I wasn't sure if these Saiyans were in full control of their minds, so was it even worth it to try reasoning? If I destroyed the artificial moon, they'd be left vulnerable; if I showed I was strong enough to take on everyone here maybe the soldiers would back down and they wouldn't have to die –
"Hey!" I called out, since no one had noticed me yet.
They continued not noticing, ground thundering from the Saiyan's blows. Earth and vegetation was crushed with each awry blow, dirt and bits flying into the air. A chunk of rock flew by pretty close to my head, but not close enough or dangerous enough that I needed to move.
Just as I was about to run forward again, I saw the smaller ape swipe their arm through the air and seize the Dodoria look-alike, smashing him into the ground.
In a split second that seemed to freeze in my mind's eye, the Saiyan then lifted the man to their giant, razor-teeth filled maw and, biting down, tore him into pieces with their teeth. Blood ran out between the gaps – and the Saiyan finally turned and locked their eyes onto my position.
They opened their mouth again, as if they were going to roar, but instead a massive swirl of yellow ki formed and then struck the wide swath of ground I'd just been standing on, incinerating everything in its path.
I'd leaped into the air and the beam followed me, and I flew myself closer to the Saiyan each time I swerved to avoid their attack.
"Hey! Can you understand me?!" I yelled once I'd gotten close enough and the beam had dissipated. In response, the ape swung their fist and sent me into the ground. Their arm came down a second time but, as I was still a Super Saiyan, I caught the blow to prevent myself from being crushed.
Slowly, I started pushing the ape's fist back, getting my legs under me for better leverage.
"Look – you don't have to fight me! If anything I say is even getting through... I came here to help you! I'm the Prince of Saiyans! I'm not dead!" I implored.
The Saiyan roared wordlessly in animal frustration and brought their other hand down, forcing me to free one of my arms to fire a ki blast in that direction. It struck home and the ape reeled back away from me, for the moment.
I had to destroy the artificial moon – the affects of the Blutz waves would still last a little while after, but once it waned the Saiyans' strength would drop (and I didn't want to resort to cutting off their tails). I could take down the smaller one as an ordinary Super Saiyan, but the other...
Glancing over, I noticed that the bigger Saiyan was finally starting to look in my direction. That one was going to give me more trouble. If I didn't have to use the Ascended form, I wouldn't, but unless I could reason with them the larger ape – judging by their energy – could cause me some serious damage. If the two of them ganged up on me, I'd have no choice but to Ascend.
Raising my hands to the sky, I was about to start gathering energy for an attack at the artificial moon when I was unceremoniously swiped off my feet.
I didn't realize what had happened, completely disoriented until I felt a constricting pressure around my body and the lack of ground beneath me. One of the Saiyans must have smashed me against against the ground and now, as I quickly determined, I was encircled in their fist, only one arm free from their iron grip.
"Not fast enough," the ape's voice boomed.
This one can talk! If they'll listen to me...
Up close, it was startling just how huge the Great Ape appeared, this one in particular. Their fur was a shade away from pitch black and the white of their fangs, about half my body length, contrasted vividly with the leathery skin of their face and nose. I couldn't exactly read an emotion from their glowing red eyes, but I didn't doubt that if this one decided to take after the other and eat somebody, two or three people would fit in their mouth without a problem. The thought was not comforting.
"Hey! You can understand me, right?!" I said, attempting to reason again. "We don't have to be fighting! I'm the Prince of Saiyans and I came here to help you!"
The Saiyan didn't answer and instead started to tighten their grip and crush me.
"Are you even listening?! Look at me, I'm a Super Saiyan!" I started pushing back against their hold, one hand reaching for the hilt of my sword. "I don't want to fight you!"
Just as I finished speaking, there were several sharp flashes of light in the sky, attacks aimed at the artificial moon coming from the ground below. There, to my amazement, I saw the Arlian running with all its might from the other Great Ape. The insect had tried to destroy the sphere by itself. No, not tried – the insect had actually succeeded in destroying it. The glow from the orb's former position was fading with the pulses of light heralding its obliteration.
Taking advantage of my captor's shock, in a quick motion I used my free arm to withdraw my sword and slash down, biting deep into the Saiyan's skin and their blood spit from the wound onto my arms. They loosened their clutch with a surprised growl and I took the opportunity to slip out, darting into the sky.
I narrowly dodged the next swipe from the larger ape still on my tail, following up with a series of rapid kicks to their arm which appeared to do nothing. Despite their bulk, the transformation didn't slow them down a relative amount so while I didn't want to severely injure them, I had to defend myself until I got through. I supposed the Saiyan with their wits still intact just didn't believe what I was telling them – but how did I make them believe me?
I could hear the Arlian screaming now. It was the last PTO soldier left alive; the last enemy to the Saiyans still on this planet. Stealing glances where I could, I noticed that the smaller ape had seized the insect and, after hitting it against the ground a couple times, proceeded to start stepping on it.
Without thinking, I aimed my palm towards the Saiyan and let loose an energy ball large enough to throw them off their feet and away from the Arlian. Then, I dropped rapidly to the ground, darting between the legs of the larger Saiyan and slicing at them with my blade, giving me a small window where I was able to get to the insect's prone form.
When I reached it, I could see it was still alive. Dazed, bruised, but alive.
"Listen up! If you want to live, you'd better get out of here! This is your last chance!" I ordered. Whatever pity, or mercy, or gods-knew-what made me offer the creature an opportunity to live, I was letting the instinct run its course.
"Y – You saved me again," the insect wheezed.
"I'd really appreciate it if a single one of you idiots actually payed attention to what I'm saying! If you don't want to be crushed to death, you need to take a pod and get off this planet!"
"But that m – moon thing is destroyed! I watched you fight, the two of us can win!" it argued.
"You stupid insect!" I growled, thrashing it back and forth out of frustration. "You work for the PTO! If you don't fucking leave, I won't save you again because I'm not one of you! I'm a Saiyan and I pretended to be on your side so I could get here to help my people! If you have any sense of self-preservation in you, you'd run as fast as you can to tell Frieza that the Prince of Saiyans is alive and pray I don't change my mind!"
The Arlian sat there in stunned silence, globular eyes wide, so with that I stood up and hurled the creature into the sky as hard as I could. I didn't bother to watch its trajectory before I was rolling to evade a blast launched at me from one of the Saiyans, the heat so close it actually singed my side a little.
When I was back on my feet from the momentum, I was already braced to retaliate when I noticed the smaller Saiyan was staggering back, as if trying to regain their balance. Only when they began to topple, shrinking behind the tops of the mushroom forest at the same time did I realize the Blutz waves were wearing off, and the larger Saiyan was following suit.
As I started moving in their direction I realized that the sky had been getting brighter, shadows cast by the giant mushrooms deepening as the sun slowly rose. Patches of light were forming in the gaps between the natural vegetation and the areas where it had been destroyed by the battle, and a sense of warming tinged the air. My estimated time of day had been backwards.
I didn't know which Saiyan to go after first. The swells of their ki were falling dramatically, but within moments they were shrinking unnaturally fast until they disappeared and I realized they were trying to hide their energies. I didn't have a scouter on me anymore, but they wouldn't know that for sure – nor would they be aware I could sense them if they slipped up.
My heavy breathing became the only sound in my ears so I slowed to a walk. The atmosphere had taken a greater toll on me than anticipated; even if I had ki to spare it wouldn't stop the degree of hypoxia affecting my body. The last thing I wanted to do was make myself pass out. However, it would bother me less if I stayed a Super Saiyan, so I did.
I stopped in place and lowered my sword arm so that the tip of the blade rested in the dirt. Taking one more deep breath, I concentrated on the scents in the air.
Most of it, like before, had no odour. But traces of smoke, blood, and sweat hinted here and there, but I needed something a little more precise, more individual –
There it is. The smell of a Saiyan, but not the one whose blood was on my sword. The smaller one, then.
I'd actually gone numb to the familiar scent of Saiyans for the most part, until I'd lived on Earth and understood how different it was from that of a human's. A pure human, at least. (Half-bloods seemed to sway one way or the other depending on where or with whom they spent their time.)
The ground rose into a gradual hill as I continued onward, following the scent I'd caught. Going further, I noticed the earth was overturned in large patches – and then I heard a shift of movement, barely there.
I moved a little further up, eyes locking onto the source of the disturbance to my left.
There, a humanoid figure was pulling himself to his feet, struggling from exhaustion with harsh breaths and using the trunk of a mushroom as support. When he raised his head, his eyes locked on mine and he froze.
He was lean and wiry, making him appear more dexterous than strong. His barely shoulder-length hair was a layered mess, some of it falling as bangs and the rest didn't seem to have a particular place. He was aged somewhere in his prime, like me, but what stood out the most about him were the markings: flowing black patterns on the right side of his face, extending down his neck and arm. Tattoos. I'd never seen anything like it.
While he probably didn't remember the battle very well, the look in his eyes as he acknowledged me indicated he had some awareness left over. I suddenly remembered I was wearing PTO armour, and still held my bloodied sword at my side.
His expression shifted from restrained fear to determination before he spit a wad of blood onto the ground.
"Get on with it, then," he uttered between heaves for air.
"I'm not here to kill you," I replied, taking a step forward. "We're on the same side. If you just listen to me -"
I didn't get to finish because I was abruptly struck with what felt like a boulder projectile-launched into my side, sending me and the unknown force careening down the hill one over the other.
Whatever this thing was, it was solid, and kept my shoulders pinned in such a way that each time I rotated to hit dirt was more jostling than the last until, at the bottom of the hill, I threw the weight off and managed to stop my tumble on my hands and knees.
My fingers instinctively coiled over where the handle of my sword should've been, but it wasn't there. I knew I'd dropped it during the fall, but I didn't have time to look around for it because my tackler was already up so I moved to follow suit. Unfortunately, it – he? – was faster to recover and before I could evade, a robust kick to my side was sending me through the air to smack into one of the mushroom trees.
I landed roughly upright enough to catch myself, but then my opponent was there and he struck me directly in the sternum, hard, with his fist and it knocked more wind out of me. However, I caught the second incoming punch and locked eyes with the perpetrator.
A woman. It was too dark still to make out smaller details but she was indeed female – long-haired and strikingly tall, over six and a half feet by my estimate, with broad shoulders and muscular arms. She somehow remained strong enough to hurt me in my Super Saiyan form.
I set my jaw and summoned more strength, bracing myself and then pushing her back with a growl. Realistically, I knew I could end this very quickly by Ascending. Yet if I could help it, I'd rather hurt the Saiyans as little as possible until they listened to me. Neither of them seemed to recognize the form I was in now...
"Stop fighting and let me explain!" I tried yet again as I swung a punch and a roundhouse kick at her head, which she was able to merely lean back from. "If you don't I'm going to have to get serious!"
Despite the concentration of energy she seemed to put into her physical strength, I was still faster, and if my predictions were correct she would lack the stamina to maintain her brute power and would tire very soon. She was breathing harder than I was, both from the atmosphere and in recovery from her transformation. Yet –
She's trying to target my vital areas, I realized the instant before I leapt back to dodge the knee intended to hit between my legs. She's tiring out and trying to end this quickly.
If she wants to play dirty, fine.
I let one of her next blows knock me down, exaggerating my weakness so that I could stagger backwards into a roll and stop close to the ground without looking suspicious, releasing my transformation. Predictably, the woman followed in right after, thinking I was genuinely off-guard.
Both of us were in the direct light of the sunrise now, favouring me as it was at my back. My hand curled into the soft earth as she moved to strike down at me.
But she suddenly hesitated, arm slowing mid-swing as she met my gaze, the split-second hovering in the air.
In the rays of dawn, I was able to see her surprise clearly – make out the details of her features, inexplicably noting the spattering of freckles on her cheekbones right before I threw my handful of dirt into her coal-coloured eyes.
She jerked away instantly as if stung, already wiping at her eyes and stumbling the other direction in a hiss of pain. A few moments she was falling over, flat on her back before rolling to her knees in some effort to not be totally vulnerable. But she didn't return to her feet.
I stood up. "Are you done now?" I said, the question an honest one. She didn't respond, although I could tell she was trying to reorient herself. Nevertheless, if she'd fallen from a mere smattering of dirt, she was much more fatigued than she appeared.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the other Saiyan had recovered and was limping his way over. When he saw his companion's situation, his eyes widened and in a contrastingly odd gesture of compassion he then sped into a run to reach her side. However, he slowed to a walk within a few yards of distance, then gently took her around the shoulders to guide her to her feet. The woman apparently still had the strength to shrug her companion off and finish wiping at her eyes once she stood up again.
"You," she said abruptly. "I know your face."
I was about to reply when I saw that she had cut off whatever she'd been going to say next, eyes having shifted to something behind me.
"It took you long enough," a voice called out from that direction.
"If it isn't our resident No Name... Finally decided to join the party?" the tattooed Saiyan spat at the owner of the voice.
Slowly, I turned around, not having noticed the third energy emerge until now.
"I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to the Prince of Saiyans," the newcomer replied.
Dark, focused eyes. A pale, x-shaped scar marring his entire left cheek and a tangle of black bangs framing a face that, as always, was one I knew best second only to my own – except it wasn't that person. It was –
"Tora?" I blurted in disbelief.
Tora, with my blade in his hand, cocked a tiny smile. "It's been awhile, kid."