Korravi cradled the old man in her arms as she followed me. We'd been able to snap his collar easily (he wore no cuffs like the others), but his ki didn't spring back much. I did my best to give him a few brief explanations for the situation as he inquired.

"How... did you know I was here? How did you... survive the attack on our planet?" he continued, two of his many questions.

"We actually weren't sure you were here. The rest is a long story – too much to explain now, but I promise I'll tell you what I know once we're out of here. For now, you should save your energy," I said.

"We've met... before. I was a c - ... council member. That's why they let me... live. Information... Not surprised... you can't remember me like this."

"Please try to conserve your energy," I repeated. "We may have a way to bring you back to full health, but we also need you to make it there." It was true that I didn't recognize him, but if he was able to mention a specific time it might have jogged my memory. Provided he stayed in one piece long enough to talk to us.

Gohan, are you there? I sent out, hoping the half-blood in question would still be with his father. Goku usually carried the senzu beans, unless they'd left them on the probably capsulized ship.

"You... woman... To have survived alongside the prince... Are you... Royal Guard?" the old man kept trying.

I couldn't hear either her or Gohan answer, but I could hear the prisoners yelling down when they noticed us preparing to leave.

"Hey, aren't you gonna free us too?" one of them called. "You'd save a couple of Saiyans but not us? Come on, we helped you!"

Truthfully, I wasn't sure whether or not to free these inmates. Some of them could be wrongly imprisoned by the PTO, but some could very well be dangerous. I had no way of knowing –

The entrances on both sides of the room burst open. In flooded more soldiers at long last, a stream that didn't end until the three of us were encircled where we stood by the room's centre spire. I felt Korravi bump into my back.

A large orange-skinned alien with a fanged underbite stepped out from the rest of the soldiers closer to my side, heavily armoured.

"So, is that all you wanted? A useless Saiyan barely clinging to life?" he rumbled. I said nothing, so he went on.

"I'm the warden of this prison, so as little of a thing you've expended all this effort to get, I can't let you leave with it. You have incredible power, yes, but we've reactivated the shield and you won't escape before reinforcements arrive. But this doesn't have to be settled with more violence. If you return the prisoner and give us that other Saiyan with you, we'll let you walk out of here without trouble. Reward you, even – the PTO knows when to cut its losses and negotiate civilly."

"You act like you're in any place to make demands. These people aren't up for barter," I stated.

"We couldn't help but notice that you didn't kill any of our soldiers. How are you planning to keep your prisoner unharmed without killing any of us? You are vastly outnumbered and soon the whole planet will be made aware of your presence!"

"You're right – the two of us on the hundreds of you aren't fair odds. Maybe you should bring the rest of the planet's reinforcements, because if you couldn't help but notice you're vastly outmatched."

The warden spoke more, but I set his words aside to think. He was correct that the shield would slow us down a little. It would also be harder to fight while having to keep an eye on the old man, or on Korravi being weighed down by him.

"I have an idea," I said to her.

She didn't respond. In fact, she didn't seem to be paying attention to me at all, focused on the enemies ringing us. Ignoring again – like she really wasn't hearing me standing right behind her.

Was the slightest acknowledgement too much to ask for when I talked? Nothing I could see of her face reacted to my voice, nothing in her posture, though I could feel her back muscles shifting minutely whenever I myself shifted against them. She's reacting to what I do, but nothing I say aloud is getting through? It's like every time I'm not in her field of vision she can't –

Wait.

I could see the soldiers beginning to creep in from the corner of my vision, but I ignored it, turning to put my hand on the woman's arm. She finally titled her head enough to meet my eyes. Waiting, watching my face. Reading it.

No way.

I must have had shock plastered all over me because she was almost facing me now.

"What's wrong?" she said. "We shouldn't have a problem with them, but you're going to have to take the brunt of it unless you want to hold him."

"Face me," I told her. She did so, looking perplexed. I could hear the warden in the background attempting to egg his soldiers on and not be afraid of us. The inmates were making noise too, all clamorous distractions that didn't register anywhere in her expression.

"What's the plan?" she said, eyes flicking back and forth between me and the soldiers advancing behind. "Why are you just...?"

I glanced at the towering spire. There had been one in every room, so they had to be important. I looked back at her.

"Trust me," I said, and then I acted, all within the span of a few seconds.

I became a Super Saiyan and levitated up to wrap my arm around her – making sure the old man was carefully sheltered between us – before I used my free arm to summon my ki and blast a hole that went right through the spire and through the roof. The whole room flickered as the explosion crackled along the pillar but I didn't stay long enough to see the fruits of my wager, securing my grip on my companions before tugging them with me to shoot up through the ceiling.

How had I not noticed she couldn't hear?

All this time, those things I'd thought of as mere eccentricities – had she been reading our lips and expressions? Was that even possible to keep up? It must've been why – ! She couldn't pretend to make eye contact up close, didn't use my name because she hadn't been sure what it was, didn't answer questions when she couldn't hear them.

There were Saiyans who lost eyes or limbs or took permanent injury in battle. But it could often be seen as a sign of weakness, a sign of not being strong enough to have avoided it. And it was certainly not acceptable to be born that way. One might as well be a half-blood.

Damn it all, I'd been so oblivious.

When I felt the impact of the roof crumble away and clear wind rush through my hair from our speed, I slowed and pulled back, the three of us uncurling. Beyond us the clouds were once again cloaked with the purple veil of the shield – one pillar clearly wasn't enough to sever the power to the entire complex.

The old man opened his eyes, unbracing himself.

"Your hair," he said. "Your eyes. You really can..."

"Yeah. I can. But we're not out of the woods yet. We still need to get back through the shield," I told him, refocusing my attention to Korravi.

Right on cue, a piece of rubble fell out of her hair, emphasizing the displeased expression she wore.

"Maybe a warning next time you barrel me through a roof," she said.

"Well now we're even," I replied. I was burning to ask – confirm that she was deaf. It was obvious now that she was trying to disguise that she was lip-reading, that it was where her eyes kept going back to, but I didn't know if she wanted to keep it secret. The old man was right there, and below us a few soldiers were starting to come through the holes I'd left.

On second glance, I could see flashes of light and hear more explosions. It looked like the prisoners of the maximum security ward had been freed and were wreaking havoc on their captors.

Shit – I forgot to free the others!

"Korravi, I need to go back and let the rest of the prisoners out. Can you take down the shield?" I asked.

She pursed her lips. "You'll be able to do it faster. You take the old man, I'll go back."

When she held her arms out I reached back instinctively, but hesitated. "No, I – I think I should do it. If you don't have anyone watching your back during a fight, maybe you – it might not be safe."

"Why?"

"Becau -" I stopped myself from blurting it out. But how would my sudden realization change her ability to fight, anyway? She was deaf before I knew, so she's clearly developed her own way to navigate combat.

She gave me a look, then dumped her cargo into my hands.

"If you get the shield down before I'm back, just go. I'll catch up with you," she said, and then she soared off.

After muttering an apology to the old man as I adjusted to hold him with one arm, I flew up to the shield and set my free hand on it. I pressed my ki out once more, faster than last time while being careful not to accidentally fry the person hanging on to me. I wasn't sure I could manage that if I used the Ascended State again, but this would definitely take me longer as only a first-level Super Saiyan.

I'd been hovering there for less than a minute when an energy blast narrowly missed me and struck the shield to my side. I whirled around just in time to see another incoming attack, this one from one of the cannon weapons. The blaze was quickly swallowing everything in my view so I took a risk.

In a flash I Ascended and curved my body around to hopefully take the majority of the hit. Everything went blinding yellow for a moment and a hot tickle raced over my skin, but there was no real pain. I thought I heard someone cry out but the explosion ringing in my ears made it hard to be sure.

When the flash dissipated I raised my free hand and set loose an onslaught of my own ki haphazardly in the direction of my attackers. Still facing them, I used the precious seconds I'd bought and mustered the biggest energy sphere I could – larger than my body, which was large enough – and after making sure the soldiers below were fleeing I quickly swivelled in place and launched it at the shield.

The shell bubbled and seized where the blast had hit, and in that moment I hurtled forward into the vulnerable spot and struck it shoulder-first.

I felt myself break through instantly and the background crackling ceased, replaced once more by the hissing of raindrops on my aura.

I glanced down at the old man to make sure he was still in one piece, huddled against me, and then looked back down at the prison. Korravi was nowhere to be seen yet, but the complex was a mess of detonating attacks and people were streaming out everywhere. Most of the soldiers were occupied or appeared to be fleeing now that the shield was down.

There was nothing left to do but speed off and get the rescued Saiyan somewhere safe for the time being.

I powered down and took off into the sky, heading for the abandoned edifices at the city limits. More thundering sounds echoed behind me, some strong enough to be felt through my bones despite being airborne. There was no way the ruckus wasn't attracting anyone's attention.

When I looked back again, Korravi still wasn't there.

Finally, the lifeless ground gave way to the old architecture and I angled down towards the nearest few. I stifled my speed just before touching ground and selected one of the open buildings at random before moving inside.

The room was dark and completely empty. I glimpsed around it quickly before moving to the closest wall and kneeling down.

"Sorry. Are you able to wait here for a few minutes? I'm going to go back and give her a hand," I explained, setting him on the ground without releasing his upper body yet. A hissing escaped his teeth as soon as a shifted him and I paused.

The scarce lighting was enough to reflect a strange glisten along his body, on the front and left side all the way up to his shoulder at the same time a very wrong smell hit my nose.

Burns. He was burned.

"Oh shit. Oh no," I exhaled.

"Don't... ngh. Not... dead yet," he gasped out, cracking an eye open to look at me.

Had I done this to him? There was no way I could've done it, not to such an extent – I had more control over the Ascended State than that! His left side had been exposed to the cannon fire, but the burns on the front of his torso – what if I –

"Just – just stay – stay calm," I said. While trying to jostle him as little as possible, I moved so that my right hand was on the centre of his back, and gently fed some of my ki into him. He winced but otherwise didn't move, tail laying limp next to him.

"You... should go," he said. "That woman... more important... than me."

I mentally tried to signal Gohan again, to no success. "I'm sorry – I can't heal you. This is all I can do until we get back to the others."

"Others," he said.

"Yeah. There are seven of us. I mean, one ran off here somewhere, but we're going to find him. We're going to find the rest of the survivors."

He blinked at me, slowly. "You need to make sure... the ones you brought with you... live first."

I gently moved him again so that he was resting on the ground and I slid my hands away before standing.

"Stay alive," I instructed. "I'm going to make sure that woman's alright. We'll come right back here to get you, but you need to stay alive until then."

"Hmph. Have a little more faith... in an old man than that," he replied. "When you return, I'll tell you... I'll tell you everything I know."

I nodded at him once, then was back out the door and into the air.

In the distance, Korravi's ki – I was sure it was hers – was expanded, startlingly almost. When I first felt it, a bolt of adrenaline had gone through me; I could've sworn she was edging on Super Saiyan. There was only one person I'd ever seen not in my or the Son family who could do that.

But Korravi wasn't a Super Saiyan. Her aura didn't have that dense, burning sensation to it. It made it hard to compare the size, but I supposed it was almost on par. Which didn't make any sense because every Saiyan I'd known that had achieved the transformation had done it around the same point in strength.

In any case, people this strong didn't mysteriously show up one day by coincidence. Prior to acquiring Bardock, Frieza himself had supposedly only been that level, believing his untapped potential meaningless. Even Broly and his father had been on the fringes of our lives, tempering the former's genetic aberrancy into a weapon against my family. No one I knew of had such a level of power and been able to remain anonymous. Yet somehow, this woman had just been traipsing the galaxy unknown and also happened to have a connection to me?

If this was something else my father had done...

I'd neared within a few hundred feet of the prison when I realized that not much was left of it. About a third of its span had been consumed and I couldn't see anyone left fighting in the immediate vicinity, though some battled in the distance and I presumed the rest had fled. Sections of the compound smoked but one area in particular caught my attention.

Steel fragments were still crumbling when I touched ground. An enormous crater under open sky, broken only by a few stray shards protruding from the ground, was present where there had once been walls. A humanoid shape with long black hair lay in the centre.

I ran over, despite being able to sense that Korravi couldn't be too hurt for the energy she had remaining. But if she was just lying there something had to be wrong.

"Ouch," I heard her deadpan right after I ran over to her and had grabbed her shoulder, about to give her a tug. "Oh, it is you."

"What the hell did you do?" I demanded as I looked her up and down. Like the old man, she was burned, but worse. Her abdomen and lower chest were still intact, but were otherwise a mess of charred flesh and blood. Her expression, however, was calm.

"Tried to save someone's life," she grunted. "Didn't know they'd picked up one of the cannon things. I guess they don't like Saiyans very much – aimed it right into my stomach when I turned around. Blew up all this after to finish off the warden and his lackeys."

She stopped talking when I pulled her up, one hand on her arm as I looped it around my shoulder and my other hand around her waist, taking care to avoid her tail.

"You said no touching."

"Shut up," I replied. "I said you can't touch me. I'm carrying you." I then lifted us into the air, double checking for enemies and seeing none coming our way before picking up speed.

I realized when no answer was forthcoming that I'd been looking forward, face angled away from her line of sight. So I tilted my head, giving her a hard glare.

"What? It doesn't hurt as bad as it looks," she said.

"You're deaf, aren't you?" I declared more than asked. "Why didn't you say something?"

Her mouth parted but no words came out.

"You're reading my lips right? Why didn't you just tell me? How long did you think you could hide that? How does that even work? I've been talking a million fucking miles a minute and there's no way you could keep that up as your only form of communication, let alone with more than one person! So there's no way that's possible but I can see you doing it so I know I'm right!"

"I forgot," she stated.

"What?"

"I forgot. It's normal for me, but I forget it's not for you. I didn't think about it until you mentioned my voice – people usually just assume things and don't ask. I guess, since we'd be working together for awhile, I should have... You already look at me when you talk, most of the time." She tapped her hand on her throat. "Still had to feel out your name the old-fashioned way, though."

I gathered my breath to speak again, glanced away, and then back.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Sorry?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry for calling you deaf to insult you. Back on the ship. I don't know if you caught it, but I – it can't be easy, hearing nothing at all. Especially when you're a Saiyan." I pursed my lips in thought. "Can you really not hear anything?"

"... I'm not sure how to answer that. I remember that I could hear some things as a child. But not the sensation itself. Sometimes I think I feel – buzzing. Maybe. It's been so long, I don't think I'd recognize noise if I did hear one."

"Oh," I said.

We flew in silence for another minute until I looked back at her.

"So... is this the part where you divulge the rest of your tragic backstory, or do I have to save you again?"

I felt her chuckle rumble through her chest. "I'd be careful about trying that tone of voice with me. Or any kind of tone." Then she laughed some more.

"I'll make sure to be extra sarcastic with my face in the future."

When she stopped laughing, she directly met my eyes, like an indicator of taking her turn to speak. Loose ends of her hair brushed my ear and shoulder as she talked.

"I'm looking for my mother," she began abruptly. "She left me behind with my grandfather on Planet Vegeta when I was young. I only know what he told me, but I was supposed to be something important. An experiment designed to recreate the Legendary Super Saiyan. To be a soldier that would restore our people to glory."

I was certain that by Legendary Super Saiyan, she was referring to the ancient myth and not to Broly. But still, I felt a cold jolt go down my spine before she continued.

"I guess a bunch of things went wrong. Clearly. Instead of killing me, my mother abandoned me. She never came back. When I... left the planet myself, I had no destination. I just wanted to see the stars. But all these years and I never came across a trace of her. I have no idea if she's still alive, but when you said you were trying to find your father, I thought this whole situation might be the last chance for both of us to find what we're looking for."

Last chance, indeed. Maybe a wanderer and a prince had more in common than being forced together by circumstance.

"If we're still allies by the end of this," I said, echoing her earlier words, "I promise I'll do my best to help you. I know what it's like to lose a mother – to have someone leave you behind. I don't have much to offer for information, but I have my strength, if you can promise your strength in return."

"I'm bad at promises. But I hope things end well, for both of us. We'll see."

When we returned to the old man, he was slumped on his side, not how I'd left him, and I couldn't hear his pulse or breathing.

Korravi and I stood motionless just after entering the room. It smelled like fresh blood – and something else. Someone else. Lingering like they'd just been there.

My unconscious mind recognized it before my functioning awareness did, and procured an image: dark, clawing tattoos, and earthen-shade eyes full of contempt for anything they looked upon.

He was here.

A/N: I'm not a hundred percent satisfied with how this chapter came out, but I refuse to rewrite it again. What could possibly be going to happen next? Who knows, not me...

(Also, did any of you happen to guess Ravi was deaf before Trunks did?)