Legacy of Warriors

Chapter 2

The Race for the Rings

(Despite my efforts, I still do not own DBZ. Consider this your disclaimer for the chapter.)

"Dende!" Decanmous called out with his mind. He was not sure how he remained conscious after the energy onslaught brought on by the bizarre intruders. Every move brought waves of pain, every breath marked another second his opponents had gained on him. He realized they were too far away for him to catch, that they had exited Earth's atmosphere already.

"What is it?" Dende asked him in response, his voice taking a concerned edge after the frantic cry Decanmous had made to him.

Decanmous grunted with the effort of sitting up, ignoring the purple blood leaking from a wound in his side and the burns on his back from the energy wave that struck him. "I just got attacked by a group of off-planeters looking for Saiyans, and they took the rings!" Decanmous cursed at himself for allowing them to get away. He cursed twice as much for letting them take the rings in the first place. "I need to make it as quick as I can to go find Gohan and tell him to search for the rings before those jerks get them all."

"Are you hurt?" Dende pressed.

Closing his eyes, Decanmous reached out with his senses in an attempt to find Gohan or Goten. "I'll live," he answered, evading the question. "I've got a lock on Gohan's position, and Goten isn't far away from him. I'll fill them in and then let you patch me up." With a hand pressed to his side to slow the bleeding, Decanmous drifted into the air slowly to make sure he could still fly. After leaving the ground, he was satisfied with his answer and rushed off toward Gohan's mountain home with all the speed he had.

Gohan must have felt Decanmous's energy signature, he decided, because the Half-Saiyan was just outside the door of his domed house looking into the sky in his direction. "You looked like Piccolo for a second," Gohan called up with a smile. The smile faded once Gohan saw Decanmous's expression, and faded more when he saw the bleeding wound at his side. "What happened?"

"Dende and I finished that secret project we've been working on. We crafted fifteen rings, the Rings of Power that would enhance the fighting strength of whoever wore them. The fifteen rings took flight much like the Dragonballs do after a wish. I managed to grab two; one for you and one for Goten. But simply put, some off-planeters that came here with the intention of killing all Saiyans took them from me and are most likely going to go looking for the rest."

"Wow, I'd say that counts as bad news," Goten said as he touched down next to Gohan. "You should go have Dende fix that wound, Decanmous."

"I had to tell you two about the situation first. This was all very unexpected." His jaw clenched. Unexpected or not, he should have foreseen the possibility of the Rings of Power being taken by those with evil intentions, should have worked out some sort of countermeasure, he thought. "This is urgent, you need to go and get these rings before those monsters do."

Gohan nodded and prepared to take flight, but stopped. "What exactly am I looking for? How will I know where these rings are?"

Decanmous recalled the churning vortex of energy and how it felt, realizing that he could still feel that power, fragmented and scattered and very much muted. But the power was still detectable. "You should be able to feel some kind of energy signature from these rings. Use that to guide you."

"Yeah, there are a bunch of small powers that weren't there before all around the planet," Goten said. "Gohan, we don't have a lot of time, so I think we better go."

Gohan looked over at Decanmous one more before taking flight. "Go have Dende heal you and stay on guard. Something tells me those aliens that attacked you aren't going to hide out for long."

"Yektla and Makradus are returning, Lord Tratz," Cecray reported from the sensor array on the bridge of the Ni Asyas orbiting warship. "I do not think they could have accurately conducted that survey in the hour they were gone, seeing as our sensors have just now calculated the threat level of the inhabitants of this planet."

Tratz sighed as he sat up in his chair at the bridge. He had been deep in thought, hoping to work out the location of Planet Neo Vegeta using the star charts and databases gathered by the other Exterminators. "No doubt they disobeyed orders and engaged the Saiyans directly. Eager little whelps." As an after thought, he added, "What did the threat level come out as?"

"Level 2," Cecray responded. "Weaklings. Which does not make sense. Kakarot was supposed to be from this planet, the one that defeated Frieza. Frieza was at least a threat level of 4 by himself. Also, that Earthling, Goku was from here as well. He defeated Majin Buu, who at his most powerful is believed to have reached upwards of threat level 8. Not to mention that insane power anomaly that was detected from this planet that topped out at threat level 14, the so called Shadow Dragons."

Tratz looked back at Cecray for a second. "This Goku sacrificed himself after the Shadow Dragon battle, correct?"

"According to the data we got from our interrogations, yes," Cecray replied.

"What if Kakarot and Goku were one and the same?" Tratz asked, not even all that interested in the answer. "Kakarot's data ends after the defeat of Frieza. Afterwards, this even more powerful legendary human known as Goku surfaces and defeats Cell, Majin Buu, Baby, and the Shadow Dragons. I do not think Goku was a human at all. I think our sources were mistaken."

"That's lame," Lentra joined in, staring out the viewport at the two figures approaching the airlock. "What's that leave us for fun? The exiled Prince Vegeta and the runts Kakarot and the prince produced with human females? I could've stayed on Ateg Evev for this crap."

Tratz waved Lentra's complaints away. "Do not write this planet off yet. Besides, the head of the prince will make an excellent trophy." The airlock opened, admitting the two scouts into the main hold of the ship. "You morons weren't gone long enough to do as I ordered."

"We found something you will want to inspect, Lord Tratz," Yektla replied with a sweeping bow, then held the two rings out in the palm of his hand for his superior to examine.

"Jewelry?" Tratz asked, his eyes narrowing as his anger visibly flared up in the form of an aura. "You abandoned your mission to show me trinkets of gold?"

"Take a closer look, Lord Tratz," Makradus cut in. "They give off an energy we can harness. What's more, we detected an additional thirteen of them scattered across the planet."

The tension surrounding Tratz lessened greatly, his aura fading away to nothingness as he regained his composure. "I see." He carefully picked the two rings up from Yektla's palms, placing them both on his own fingers. The power boost was instantaneous, a rush of strength that coursed from his head to his toes. "Get the rest of these and bring them to me. It looks like I was correct, Lentra. This planet does still hold some merit for us. The Saiyans have been identified as a threat level of only 2. These rings however make the trip more than worth it. I will share the spoils with all of you, just go find the rest."

Yektla and Makradus bowed before moving to the hatch once more to begin collecting the remaining rings.

"Man, this is so strange," Goten muttered as he and Gohan found their second Ring of Power, gently removing it from a crocodile's mouth.

"What is?" Gohan asked, startling Goten. He hadn't meant for Gohan to hear what he said and felt somewhat foolish.

"It's just that," he began, then paused, unsure of how to word his thoughts. "This is our first time fighting without father. Every other time the bad guys showed up it never seemed like a big deal, because I knew our dad was the strongest man in the universe. I knew that we would win, without ever having half a doubt. But now Dad's gone. I'm still not even completely used to that, even though he was gone for the first few years of my life anyways. To be honest, I had forgotten that we were Saiyans, even. This peacefulness… it's so easy to get lost in it."

Gohan was silent for a moment, then handed the ring over to Goten. "Father is still with us, Goten. He said he would always be with us, and I believe him. He also said that it is our turn to be the heroes now. These are some big boots to fill, but Dad wouldn't have left them behind for us unless he thought we could. Whatever this new threat turns out to be, they're going to wish they'd stayed home instead of messing with the legendary Son family." Gohan flashed a large grin at his brother, who couldn't help but returning the gesture.

"I think you missed your calling as a motivational speaker, man," Goten said with a bit of a laugh. "You should've looked into that before becoming a professor." The two brothers laughed harder, but the gentle weight and distinct feel of the Rings of Power, one in Goten's palm and the other clenched in Gohan's fist, brought the two back to the moment. "Where next?"

"We'd be quicker if we split up," Gohan replied. "How about you go east and I'll head west. We can meet up again in about two hours to check up with one another. With these new enemies out, I don't think we should stay separate for long."

Goten nodded, then closed his eyes, reaching out with his senses to try and detect the nearby rings. They were hard to detect, even though he was becoming familiar with the pulsating energy they emitted. Once he thought he located one, he took off after it. Collecting the rings proved easy, once they were located. In fact, it was easier than collecting the Dragonballs had been, since people hadn't found the rings yet and didn't know what they could do.

While gathering the rings was not difficult, it was time consuming. Before Goten knew it, the two hours he and his brother had agreed upon had expired, and Goten only had four rings, including the one he and Gohan found together, to show for it. He started heading towards Gohan's energy signature, keeping his senses sharp. That was when he noticed the subtle energy pulses from a cluster of rings moving in the direction of Gohan's distinct energy signature.

"Something tells me that's not one of our friends coming to drop off a gift," he murmured, pushing his speed to his maximum. He could detect the Rings of Power moving, but his senses could not pick up the signature of whatever held them. Gohan's energy changed as soon as the traveling rings converged on his location, spiking to indicate preparation for a battle. "Definitely no friend of his, at least…"

"I hope Goten did better than I did," Gohan said to himself while he gazed down at the four golden rings in the palm of his hand as he flew in the direction of his brother's energy signature. The two hours went by quickly.

He stopped suddenly. "That can't be right." A cluster of rings moved toward him from one direction, a location that matched Goten's energy signature, but another cluster moved in from another direction, this one without a detectable motor. On the horizon, two figures moved toward him. As they neared, he could see that they were both identical, two figures with pure white bodies, bald heads, and long tails behind them. The figures reminded him of Frieza in his final form, but completely white. Once they were upon him, he noticed that the only thing that he could use to tell them apart were their eye colors and height.

"A Saiyan," the taller one with deep blue irises said, a sneer on his face. The two aliens sized Gohan up quickly.

"With some of the rings we are searching for as well," the smaller of the pair added. His orange eyes looked directly into Gohan's. "I'd say this is our lucky day, wouldn't you, Makradus?"

The taller one, Makradus, looked over Gohan's shoulder. "I'm detecting another monkey coming this way. That one also has rings. Very lucky, I'd have to agree."

Gohan clenched the rings tight in his fist and regarded his adversaries with caution. "You attacked one of my friends unprovoked. I'm not sure where you two came from, but we don't do that sort of thing here on Earth. It's just not polite. Now, if you were to leave your rings here and fly off back to wherever you came from, I'd be willing to forgive you."

The two aliens looked at each other in silence for a second before bursting out into laughter. "You, forgive us?" Makradus bellowed while doubled over.

"Grand speech coming from a being with a threat level of only 2!"

Gohan snorted a quick laugh. "Just like the Saiyans and Frieza's men, determining our strength with out of context numbers. You're making a huge mistake just by being here."

In a flash, the smaller one struck Gohan with a punch to the chest, sending the Saiyan tumbling backwards through the air until he could correct his flight. "How dare you compare us to Saiyans? You fool! I'll teach you respect!"

"Why bother, Yektla?" Makradus said. "We're just going to kill them all anyways."

Gohan's aura flickered up around him as he called out his inner strength. "Like hell you are." The air crackled around him with the sudden burst of energy. His body felt alive, powerful. It was a rush, the thrill of battle was upon him, the greatest joy of life from the Saiyan genetic hardwiring for fighting. "I defend the Earth these days."

Goten arrived on the scene, his own aura blazing in the air. "I'm going to take a guess that these are Decanmous's former playmates." Gohan nodded, keeping his eyes focused on Makradus and Yektla. "You don't seem to have signed up to attack the Earth today, so we're gonna have to ask you to leave!"

"These are not the energy signatures of beings with a threat level of 2," Yektla gasped, his jaw hanging slightly open.

Makradus cracked his knuckles. "Doesn't matter. We're Ni Asyas. We live to crush Saiyans. Just because they have a little more life in them than we originally thought won't change the outcome of battle."

"Ni Asyas," Gohan muttered. "A name to the beasts before us. Goten, they have the rest of the Rings of Power. I'm not detecting any more around here."

"Guess we better get to fighting them so we can take what should be ours," Goten replied, placing the four rings he had gathered on his fingers. Gohan did the same, feeling an instant burst of energy course throughout his body.