The landing platform on Castor was usually guarded by two gun-toting Saiyans who weren't very powerful. It was an honor to most, as otherwise they were weak and didn't amount to much, even on Castor. It was this platform that Archis was aiming for.

Like most uses of Instant Transmission, there was no flash or any sign of any kind that the Saiyan was to appear. One second he wasn't there, the next he was. He removed his fingers from his forehead, still as angry as he had been when he left. His stance when he arrived put his back to the rest of his world, and his eyes towards the palace.

The palace in front of him was, when whole, a long, low white building, built to take up space and promote superiority. It was considered a triumph in the original days of Castor to be a part of the ruling class, and the palace was built as a way to signify that the ruling family was more important in some way than the rest of the inhabitants of the planet. Currently, the building was half caved in, and the ruins were smoking. The other half looked beat up, and very well could collapse at any moment.

Archis was seething inside. On the original Saiyan planet, Vegeta, it was considered weakness to have any ties to your family, or to care about any other Saiyan beyond the usefulness you could garner from them. On Castor, such compassion was encouraged, and considered by many to be an enormous strength. Archis wanted to find his sister's body and bury it, but knew that having no idea where she was killed, finding it would be like looking for a needle on Namek.

A large explosion from behind him made him turn around, and what caught his eye in the sky gave him pause. A humongous, silver, alien craft hung in the sky, sparks surrounding it from time to time as Saiyans from all over the planet tried to attack it. Its shields were rendering the Ki attacks all but useless, and the smaller purple cruisers flying about weren't making their jobs any easier. It seemed to Archis that the aliens had plasma weapons in their employ; plasma being a sort of artificial Ki that, when fired from a weapon instead of one's body, was a hundred times more accurate and less draining on the body, although it held about one tenth the destructive power of normal Ki.

Wrenching his eyes from the battle above, Archis looked at the landscape. The landing pad stood many meters above the ground, so that looking over the landscape, one could see and come to appreciate the sprawling empire of Castor, and the ruling city that was Ensis, in which he stood. But Ensis was no longer glorious. Fires dotted the land, black smoke rising into the sky, and there were more piles of ruin than there were standing buildings. It looked as if the silver ship had employed a kind of plasma weapon that had glassed the city in one fell swoop, and the smaller cruisers that were flying around were taking care of the stragglers.

Archis's hands were bleeding now, as hard as he was holding his fists. His nails had pierced through his gloves, and the gloves were now stained red with his blood, rather than being the white they normally were. The Prince turned on his heel and headed for the still standing half of the palace, intent on finding his father and finding out just what was going on, and who these invaders were.

Entering the building, Archis headed for the throne room. The doors were off their hinges, blown into the room, and as Archis passed them he noticed scorch marks. It was as if they had been blown inwardly by a large explosion.

He headed to the throne, where he could see a body sitting in it, slumped over. He rushed to his side, placing his hands at the shoulders of the body, and pulling him upright. It was his father, as he had thought, and he was still breathing, though it was shallow.

"Father..." Archis said softly, and the man opened his eyes and looked at his son.

"Run..." King Castor coughed and blood spattered on the floor. His body slumped over again and he fell from the throne to the floor, laying on his stomach.

Archis saw three metallic, foot-long spikes protruding from his father's back, all in a line going up his spine. His tail was missing, and out of the corner of his eye he could see the appendage lying on the floor beside the throne, as if torn from his father's body and carelessly tossed aside.

He knelt by his father's side. "I will not run." The fight with Tarble had invigorated him, and he wanted vengeance for this attack on his homeworld.

"Save yourself," Castor began, then erupted into violent coughing. The blood beneath the King pooled and spread, and Archis wanted to pull those spikes from his father's back, but knew it wouldn't do any good. "They... their technology... far surpasses our own. They call themselves the Jiralhanae... part of... some... alien Covenant..."

'Jiralhanae...' The word repeated in his mind. It was laced with hate.

"Archis... they came here... for you... their leader..." More coughing, more blood. "Their leader... wields a large hammer... it can produce... shockwaves... blow buildings apart... they throw bombs that... stick to targets... explode after a delay... their weapons... nearly infinite... your sister... your planet... me... we're all dead... don't stay... don't die..."

The King's voice was growing weaker, and Archis clasped his hand in his own, holding on tightly. He closed his eyes and struggled to keep himself from crying. This was not how he pictured his father's death.

"Run... and live..." The King breathed out one final time, and then died. The air was stilled within the palace, save for the sobs of a single heartbroken Saiyan.

Archis opened his eyes, staring at his father's body. The King died trying to protect him, but he would be damned if he was going to run from this fight. Archis was stronger than his father, and believed himself to be the strongest Saiyan of Castor, perhaps in the entire history of the planet. He said a Saiyan prayer for his fallen father, then placed his hands around two of the spikes in his back and pulled upwards. They dislodged from his spine in a shower of blood.

Archis stood, a spike in each hand, and a fire in his eye. These Covenant, these Jiralhanae... Archis was going to make them suffer.