It took me less than ten seconds to reach the ship, slowing as I neared and trying to avoid the smoke pouring into the sky around it while locating Ravi. From where I was near the side I spotted her already at the nosediving end. The metallic groans of the ship worsened as she took hold of the prow and began to push back.

I couldn't just grab something on the back or side and start pulling—it would simply tear away. But Ravi would be exerting a lot of force on a comparatively small region of the hull and judging by the worrying sound of the ship's already compromised frame giving way, it wasn't strong enough to withstand its own bulk bearing down on the pressure point. If she pushed too hard, tried to slow it too fast, the thing would just crumple. My increased strength while Ascended wouldn't change that, although I had a better chance of not being crushed.

But as long as the ship held, and Ravi could handle its weight and control its descent, I could brace her and help slow us down once we hit ground. If not… at least I could prevent us both from being pulverized.

I sped up so that I was surpassing the ship and came around to the front. Without any leverage to grab onto, Ravi was simply propping her arms and shoulder against it. The hull was already bending beneath her grip as I approached.

She noticed me when I drew in next to her and put my hand on her arm. Determination set her features and she gave me a single nod. I firmly squeezed her shoulder in return before shifting behind her, wrapping my arms around her torso and powering up to hold her steady and give an extra push.

The lashing of the wind almost made it feel like we were in freefall. I knew within moments we were going to hit the ground, so I extended my energy into a cocoon over the both of us. The gold ki crackling with electricity began to surround us, yet—there was a bright green aura there too, intermixing with my own. I sensed Ravi's energy flickering erratically, accompanied by an even more worrying metallic screech—

And then we struck.

The strength of the collision reverberated through my whole body, nearly knocking the wind out of me as I felt the ground beneath my boots literally blasting away as I strained against it. We weren't driving into the planet—Ravi had pushed the ship's falling angle enough so that we were gouging along its surface. Tidal waves of dirt, rock, flora, and debris spewed and battered us from all sides. There was nothing else but the thundering sound of shattering earth and the horrid noise of steel shredding and buckling. I closed my eyes, pressed my forehead between Ravi's shoulder blades and didn't let go.

It might have been minutes or it might have been seconds, but eventually I felt us slowing down more and more until I realized that everything was quiet and my blood was humming while the rest of me was motionless.

I opened my eyes. From my currently restricted field of vision, I could see the edge of a large crater that extended to the side of us, and further on past the piled edge were knocked down trees still intact and then the rest of the untouched forest after that, gleaming in the sunlight under the cloudless sky. I looked to Ravi.

She stared at me over her shoulder, coated in a loose layer of dirt and silt as I must have been. The green aura from earlier was gone, as if I'd imagined it.

She'd stopped the ship. She'd actually stopped it; we'd stopped it.

"Are you okay?" I said, pulling back.

"Are you aware of how strong you are?" she retorted suddenly, sounding a bit breathless.

"I… Yes? But why—"

"Then I should assume you made me nearly lose both my lunches on purpose. You have a monstrous grip," she replied, punctuating her last words with a cough.

"Oh. Sorry." I powered down from my Ascended form as she began retreating from the ship, tugging her hands from the deep punctures they'd driven into the metal. As she pulled her right arm free, the side she'd primarily been pushing with, it fell to her side unnaturally limp. She was breathing heavily, a drop of sweat rolling down the side of her face while she continued to step back, head tilting up as she surveyed the devastation we'd wrought. I followed suit, analyzing the full scope of the situation.

The crater was relatively narrow closer to the end where we were, but as I turned in a circle I could see it widened vastly to accommodate the berth of the grounded vessel. The object in question rested slightly to one side. Smoke billowed from several places, and though it was mostly in one piece, my stomach sank as I surveyed the missing chunks of exterior that had been torn off, let alone the mess that had become of the prow. Grievously twisted, crumpled, and blackened even further than its naturally worn colour, its original structure was almost entirely gone, pieces of delicate machinery exposed and scathed. The worst of the damage was located around where we'd been pushing, but no doubt the craft's underbelly was equally destroyed from its friction against the ground. A loose piece of hull about the same size I was gave up and fell off the side of the bow with a thud as I stood there.

"Shit," I said. I put my hand in my hair, feeling the grit that had layered it. Though the craft hadn't been totally demolished, the damage it'd sustained was in no way minor.

Stranded. We were stranded on this planet until Goku and Gohan returned. Which would be gods-knew-when.

I turned towards Ravi. I needed to—I didn't know. Apologize. I wasn't sure if she knew I'd been the one to deflect the fireball.

But she wasn't paying me any attention. Her gaze was still fixed on the broken machine, but it wasn't for lack of knowing I was next to her.

"Hey." I stepped in front of her. Her already relaxed braid had come partially undone where it draped over her shoulder, the same shoulder that hung oddly out of place—dislocated, or possibly separated. Her other hand gingerly held the injured limb against her side.

"My ship is destroyed," she said.

"Well… I can't guarantee what's salvageable until I can get inside, but I'd save grieving over it. If you're going to be honest, it's not like you were kind to it before, and it was ancient. I just hope that our stuff isn't trashed. Our first order of business should be to relocate your arm for you," I said. She let me take it and I held it on my shoulder, putting my other hand against her collarbone to support it properly.

"It was a piece of junk even when I first set foot on it," she said suddenly. She wasn't looking at me in the eye, or even at my face. Just staring at the ground, head bowed. "The ship. I helped a gang of thieves fish it out of a part dealer's scrapyard so we'd have something to get off-world with. It was the only thing in the place still running, and… it never quit on us. Even years later when I left them and stole the ship for myself, I never expected it to last. I've never… had much as it is, and I couldn't just get rid of it. After everything. No matter how much I wished it would give up on its own, I've lived on it all this time. And the very same day I return to what's left of the Saiyans… they destroy it just like that."

My mouth felt dry. I said nothing and with a precise motion tugged her arm in such a way that it clunked back into place. She breathed a relieved sigh, but when she began to pull back, I kept hold of her wrist on my shoulder. She paused.

"It was my fault," I said. "I mean, I didn't fire the attack, but I was the one who deflected it into the sky. If I hadn't been so careless it would've never gone near the ship at all. I could've stopped Yarrow before he ever got the chance to let out that much power. And the damage is… I don't know if I can fix it. Even though you saved it from much worse, I don't think… Even if I were half the engineer my mom is, on a planet where I have no replacement parts and no—no anything, I..."

She drew her hand away. Her lips parted. "Your—"

Something impacted the ground close by and I whirled around.

Daikon was lying in the dirt, like he'd been hit or thrown, and my guess was confirmed when a woman's voice exclaimed, "Hello there! I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

Landing above us to perch atop the prow of the crash-landed ship was one of Yarrow's subordinates: the burned woman, his second lieutenant. Kassav.

The worst of the smoke drifted beside or behind her, so at this proximity I could see her quite clearly. Most of her swept-back hair was intact, save one area extending from her temple—Saiyan hair was damn near fireproof—but all her skin had varying degrees of scarring, the charred flesh long-since healed. However, as the bone structure of her face was undamaged, I still got a sense of her features beyond the disfigurement.

"You won't kill me if I come down, will you?" she asked, looking right at me, striding forwards along the prow.

"You should be asking me that, wench," Daikon growled as he clumsily got up from his position.

Kassav kept walking. "Wench? That's not very nice. I wasn't even roughing you up that badly, and besides, I was talking to the Swordsman."

"What do you want?" I said.

"Though I would've loved to get my chance to spar with the Captain, I'm not trying to start—or finish, mind you—a battle with anyone. The Boss seems to be gathering his wits, so most of us have quit fighting, but I imagine everyone else will be here in a few minutes. That was quite the skirmish you two had, by the way. There's only one other person I've ever seen back Yarrow into a corner like that. Colour me damn impressed."

She paused where the worst of the ship's front-end damage began before pouncing off onto the ground and continuing ahead.

"I'm Kassav, by the way. Second Lieutenant, Commander of the Lower Forces, and Survivor of Bullshit. I've already been introduced to your friend with the creative vocabulary." She gestured at Daikon, who was upright but otherwise staying put, watching her carefully.

"I'm Trunks," I said. "Prince of All Saiyans."

There was an awkward silence as she stared at Ravi, waiting.

"Korravi," the latter replied at length.

"Well then, welcome to Terracotta, the three of you," Kassav said, focus back on me. She was only a few arm's lengths away now.

"You really are a half-blood, aren't you?" she went on. "May I approach? It's just… been so long since I've seen someone like you." There was no deceit in her tone or body language, nothing to suggest she didn't mean exactly what she'd said.

"You've met another half-blood before?" I asked.

"Years ago." She came closer, lifting her hand. "Gods, look at you. You're just a young man—"

She pulled back and stepped aside when at that moment, her allies descended from the sky to land around us. Behind me, I sensed my own companions do the same.

Goten was quickly at my side and I turned, both assessing that he wasn't severely injured and giving him a brief nod to let him know I was fine.

Across from us, Yarrow was the last to land, the blonde woman with him. His subordinates parted the way for him as he strode forward alone. His eyes surveyed what was left of the landscape, then locked onto me. I remained where I was.

He stopped within speaking distance, but not close enough to be in immediate danger if I were to strike. His hands were tightened into fists at his sides, but his expression was unreadable, though he was clearly otherwise in thought.

"Are you ready to finish what we started?" I said.

He pursed his lips and stared off to his left for a moment, looking at nothing in particular. Then his hands unclenched and he returned eye contact once more.

"Well?" I said.

He lowered himself to the ground, slowly, until he was kneeling, one fist squared into the dirt.

"I surrender," he announced. The instinctual tension that often crept into my shoulders loosened.

"I know this is cowardice," he continued, "but I'll accept that temporary disgrace to relinquish my claim and acknowledge you as true heir to the throne. You are an opponent I clearly cannot defeat and I realize you speak the truth about who you are. I have no interest in challenging you further, but if you see fit to take my life, then I will fight until my last breath—for the sake of my honour and for the honour of those who serve me."

"I'm here to help our people, not to kill them. I accept your surrender," I said. He was also going to be much more familiar with the survivors than I was, and even if I'd wanted to, getting rid of him would be a bad idea when trying to gain the loyalty of a bunch of strangers.

The tension left him as well as he exhaled, standing up. "Forgive me. It was widely rumoured that you'd died, and in your foreign clothes it was easy for me to assume you weren't whom you claimed to be. And I've never seen you before."

"Uh, sure," I replied.

"So, wait, is that it?" the young boy interrupted from behind Yarrow, seemingly popping into existence there. The man himself rolled his eyes heavily as the onslaught began. "We're just friends now? I was in the middle of fighting that other half-breed and I didn't even get to use my full power! You were going all out and I couldn't not get distracted because you, like, almost never use that form and it's really cool but because I was still fighting I couldn't look for too long, although I was totally getting my opponent on the ropes—"

Yarrow promptly turned and reached out behind him to grab the boy in a headlock.

"You horrible brat. Has nobody ever taught you manners? You can't interrupt people's conversations, especially not mine!" he chastised, twisting his knuckles into the boy's head. Neither his mannerism nor his tone of voice was very forceful.

"I learned my manners from you!" the boy fired back, half laughing.

"The War Goddess take you, and your mother as well!" Then Yarrow's focus returned to me, though he kept one arm around his captive. "Excuse Selry, stran—ah, Your Highness. He's never learned to give or earn proper respect."

"Is he your son?" I said.

"Ha! Gods, no. My sons are all dead," the man responded casually.

I balked. "Oh. I… Sorry."

"Indeed it is. If all five of my progenies were killed by Frieza, then that demonstrates that he is quite the threat, yes?" He paused and put his free hand to his chin. "Wait. Six. I had six sons. Though I suppose it doesn't matter now… If Selry's survived, he's worth more anyway! Of course, he and I were in a squadron together ever since he was knee-high, so he's proved that his battle prowess outweighs his exuberance… sometimes." Yarrow released him.

"Well, then, it's… nice to meet you Selry, I suppose," I addressed to the boy, who was pouting in Yarrow's direction but completely brightened up after I spoke.

"It's nice to meet me? Wow, you're the first person who's ever said that! I was gonna say that your sword was badass, but you seem pretty badass too. You're part alien and stuff, right?"

The rest of Yarrow's team had gotten comfortable enough to approach. The old man was first to step forward, giving a curt nod as he did so.

"I am Raab. Yarrow's First Lieutenant, principle advisor, and science officer," he said. His posture remained stiff and square. "I believe Kassav has already introduced herself to you. This is Yan."

Beside him, the pale-skinned man, who hadn't said a word since our arrival, put a hand over his chest and bowed from the waist. He remained silent, but his demeanour veiled no hostility. He mouthed the word 'hello' as he straightened up, his hair just barely short enough to be out of his eyes.

"And this," Yarrow said, patting the blonde woman on the back, "is my sister, Arula. She's not very skilled in, well, any type of combat or self-defence, but at least has a good head on her shoulders. Aside from her ridiculous hair, of course—not malnutrition, just that I got all the good genetics and she didn't." He chuckled to himself. Arula didn't respond verbally, but her posture slumped in on itself meekly as she blinked up at me. "Also, I believe you two have met at some point. She always talked about how she wanted to work in the palace someday and lo and behold, you practically drop into our lap!"

"Yarrow!" she blurted before turning to me. She nervously twirled a delicate hand into her strawberry blonde bob. "I'm sorry, Your Highness, it's, uh, I mean, he's right that I'm not a fighter, I worked on an assembly line before everything fell apart. But we haven't really met before. I was just at the palace once and we crossed paths, and—and I saw you at your coming of age ceremony, too. That's all."

"I see. Good to have you here anyways. The Saiyans need every survivor we can get, non-fighters included," I responded.

She blushed and said nothing else.

I gave brief introductions for my own companions, careful not to divulge too much information. Goten hovered uncertainly behind me, Bardock stood at my side, and Daikon and Ravi stayed back a little. Raab came wandering through our group as if inspecting merchandise, crinkling his nose when he passed Goten, but I was distracted from paying too much attention to what the old man was doing when Bardock started asking more questions.

"So, tell us about the other survivors. It's more than just you six, right? How many are there? Excluding your sister, I'd assume these are just your best warriors," he said.

"Correct. There are others that are skilled, but I brought my best five to counter the five of you I detected with my scouter. Arula merely tagged along. Planet-wide, I'd say there are… five hundred Saiyans at most, but probably less. I'd wager a little over half of those are with us," Yarrow said.

"Only half? Then where are the rest?" Goten inquired.

"Well, the thing is, I am—er, was—King of Saiyans, but I wasn't king of all Saiyans. You see... aside from the straggling deserters here and there, I hadn't exactly defeated my other contender before you showed up. He's on the other side of the planet and I've neither seen nor heard from him in at least a month. And trust me, I've searched. He and his forces have attacked us before, but it's been rare that he's been able to find us. Likewise, it took me weeks to discover where he and his followers were residing, and they moved encampment after that. He's never shied from me when we've met in direct confrontation, however."

"And who exactly is this contender?" I said.

Yarrow looked around briefly, then spoke in an almost cautious voice. "Molokia. Molokia the Cannibal."

A hush fell over the groups.

"Well that's not fucking ominous at all," Daikon deadpanned behind me.

"Molokia was notorious even before the PTO turned against us. He was said to eat the hearts of his strongest opponents to absorb their strength. Other Saiyans were no exception. The last time we faced each other was when I did manage to find his hideout. I'd soundly defeated one of his lieutenants by the time he himself arrived, but—" Yarrow inhaled quietly. "He very nearly killed me, that time. But something drew him away and I survived. That was the last I've seen of him, and as I said, that was a month ago."

Hm. When I got the chance, I'd have to go hunt down this supposed contender too. If there was infighting amongst the Saiyans…

"But enough about that! Since your ship is ruined—terribly sorry, by the way—we shall have to fly back to camp ourselves and retrieve it later. We can even amass a group to help carry it. A show of good faith from our new alliance!" Yarrow exclaimed. "I certainly wasn't aiming for your vessel specifically, but battle is battle, you understand. And you did very rudely toss me off it when you first arrived, but I bear no ill will for that. No hard feelings, eh?"

"Well, yes, but I can only speak for myself as the ship's not m—"

"Excellent! Then it's settled. Allow me to guide you to our camp. I'm certain the remaining survivors will be thrilled to see the crown prince return, bringing a little hope with him."