A/N I own stuff, just not this stuff.
Wow. I gotta say that I am impressed at the response to the first chapter. It is very, very encouraging and that means it warranted me getting an update out much sooner than I had intended to. If people want me to keep going though I still need the Reviews, Favourites and Follows to go up. I have a lot of things on my plate so to focus more time on this means that other things would miss out. So if people want this story to keep going then they need to show me. As it is, I am posting this update at 1am my time when I have to get up for work in less than 4 hours. So not much spare time right now, clearly. So yes, for more focus on this, I really need the following to justify it.
Thanks to all those reviews that said they were interested and they will follow.
Talonsen: Yeah, it wasn't until after I posted the original that I remembered the whole 'Buu is immortal' thing. As I wasn't expecting this to be as popular as it was so fast, and was mainly doing it just for fun I didn't fact check overly thoroughly. That being said, when do the fighters in DBZ ever really stay dead? But as this is an AU and I don't have a part for Buu just yet, he is considered dead for now. That may change later.
Corvo Attano-TheDunwallButcher: To be honest, I only really know the anime series in any great detail. I am not as involved in the DB Online, Xenoverse and Heroes sagas and I feel like trying to throw them in 'just because' would be doing an injustice to the source material. But even in the anime humans had the ability to learn how to control their ki i.e. Videl, Yamcha, Krillin. So it is able to happen here too!
Thanks again for the support. I hope you enjoy!
…
CHAPTER 2
Desolas scowled in anger as he looked at the space in front of him. He knew what the figures on his terminal told him. That alone was enough to make him furious.
Whatever these aliens had as missile weapons, they had taken their toll. Of the initial three hundred and sixty ships, only one hundred and eighty three remained. More than half of the ships that remained had sustained damage, including both dreadnoughts. His own dreadnought had its primary engines damaged. The Fist of the Hierarchy had lost its main MAC cannon offline after a missile strike had bent the superstructure sufficiently enough to prevent it firing again. More than half his frigates had been compacted into scrap, their crews unlikely to ever be able to be removed. Those damned gravity missiles! These upstarts would pay for what they did, Desolas swore to himself.
The last of the enemy ships had sent an unusual message before it had been destroyed. It had broadcast it in the open to any ship that had a transceiver still working. Again, they had sent it in every one of the languages they had known. The only language that the turians had any recognition of had been prothean. They had sent messages back to any turian experts on the prothean language in turian space. He didn't want the asari to have a chance to interfere with what the Hierarchy were doing here. This Spirit's-cursed species would be a client race of the Hierarchy, those blue women be damned!
"General, Admiral Tyraenus has arrived in his flagship and his task force," the communications officer called out. "He's hailing you."
Ah, Admiral Tyraenus, good. He was one of the more outspoken senior leaders in the Hierarchy, saying to anyone who would hear that the turians needed to get out from under the thumb of the asari economy. To those who he spoke to behind closed doors, he was far more concerned about raising the turians to dominance over the whole galaxy. It was their right, he claimed, after they defeated the previous krogan superpower when the asari and the salarians were running like cowards, desperate for a solution that would stop their guaranteed collapse.
A little known fact was that the reason that the Hierarchy had been given a Council seat was because they had threatened to leave its association with the Council species and start its own competing Empire. That was the last bargaining card they had against the dominance of the asari and salarians. It had taken six hundred years from the end of the krogan rebellions to get to that point but the moment that the Hierarchy had made the threat, the asari and salarians panicked. That was the proof, according to Admiral Tyraenus, that the asari and salarians needed the turians more than the turians needed them. That was his argument for turian dominance.
To be completely honest, Desolas didn't care for those reasons himself. He did agree that the galaxy remained balanced on the might of the Hierarchy's navy. The problem was that the navy was reliant on the asari. But those were problems for another day. Right now, he just cared about the ninety ships in Tyraenus's task force.
He shook himself out of his thoughts. "Open an encrypted channel," he ordered.
A moment later, Admiral Tyraenus came up on the view screen.
"Arterius, what by the Spirits happened here?" the admiral demanded. "Where is the other half of your fleet?"
Desolas forced his mandible to stay clenched to his face. "The natives were far more formidable than any of us had expected, Tyraenus. They had high powered gravity manipulating missiles. I will have my communications officer send you the sensor file and video feed."
A few moments passed as the admiral watched the video that had been passed along to him. Desolas didn't even have to see the video again to know when Tyraenus got to the important part. The man's mandibles flared and his mouth dropped open.
"Spirits," he breathed. "How did they manage that?"
"I don't know," Desolas growled. "But once they are a client race of ours we can find out. Lots of turians died today. I will not have it said that is was for nothing."
"Indeed. Also, has there been any update on this message that you sent through the Relay?"
Desolas shook his head. "We don't keep an updated prothean codex on board. It's a warship, not a science vessel. The best we have is the word 'Does'."
"I see. Well, you have command of this theatre, Desolas. Orders?"
"The Pride's main engines were damaged. We are down to manoeuvring thrusters. Bring you task force in and begin blockading the planet. Keep a frigate pack on the Relay as a rear guard and have another break off looking for a corresponding Relay nearby. I don't want those damnable asari getting in on this before I finish here. I am ordering my remaining frigates that are still combat worthy to drop into a low orbit and begin targeting military bases. It's time to bring this species to heel."
…
Gohan arrived at the government agent's office a good hour before they did. The benefits of being able to fly. He sat out the front and waited until their cars arrived. He had offered to carry them but they had politely declined, preferring to use their aircar. It was alright, he understood. Not everyone was comfortable with the idea of flying without an aircar. Well, mostly it was just regular humans but still, he knew about how they lived.
Finally the black aircar appeared and the agents touched down and exited the vehicle.
"Please follow us, sir," one of them said.
"Sure," Gohan replied. He was concerned as to who would be attacking the humans. He hoped it wasn't a rogue saiyan. That would be a concern for the whole planet, especially Vegeta as King of the saiyan people.
The agents led the way through the building and finally brought him into a conference room. In the room there was a long table, much like the conference tables for when he had spent a brief amount of time working in the business world. Huh, he thought to himself. That was more than a hundred years ago. Videl was still alive then. He felt the pang of the old longing he felt for her. A hundred years later and he still missed her every time he thought of her.
At the far end of the table there was a middle aged brunette woman in a military uniform. She stood as he walked into the room.
"Son Gohan," she said, her voice brisk and all business. "Thank you for coming. I am Colonel Lacy Atkinson, Alliance Intelligence. Please take a seat."
Gohan walked over and took a seat about halfway up the conference table, three seats away from the woman.
"Alright, Colonel," Gohan said. "You got me here. Now what?"
She looked at him intently. "I want you to know before we begin," she said evenly, "that I am very much aware of your abilities. There is a very large file on you, your father Goku, the male saiyan named Vegeta, your brother Gohan, Trunks Briefs, your daughter Pan and nearly every other major saiyan or alien that has been looking after Earth for the last hundred years or more. So you don't need to think that you are giving away any secret identities during our conversation."
Gohan was shocked. "You know about us? Why haven't you done anything about it?"
She gave a wry smile. "Because there is no one in the entire Alliance that would have the ability to make you do anything that you didn't want to. Besides, you have all been defending Earth from dangers that would make most of our citizens end up lying on the floor in the foetal position and never able to move again if they knew about it. So we figured that if you were defending us or even the galaxy then we were able to cut you some slack."
She opened a file, took out a piece of paper and passed it over to him. It was a photo of a very big machine that looked like a tuning fork mixed with an old key. In the middle of it was a blue glowing light.
"How much do you know about humanity's progress through the stars to other planets, Mr Son?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Not much," he admitted. "I mean, I flew in a spaceship to the old planet Namek a long time ago. Other than that I haven't really needed to worry. Dad could just take us there instantly, so long as he could feel their energy. I know that humans do travel through space but I have never seen how you do it. I mean, I heard that there was something called element zero but I haven't really gone into it too much. You would be better talking to Trunks or Vanna, his grandson who runs Capsule Corp."
She looked at him with an intense expression. "Really? Well, for humans, once we had spaceships that could reach the moon and that was considered the pinnacle of human travel. It wasn't until we made it to Mars and we found this," she slid over another photo, this time showing some old ruins in a red background landscape, "that we realised that technologically we were simpletons. Even the technology that you saiyans brought with you was basic compared to this. The only thing that we had that was comparable to this was the capsules that allow us to remove the space between atoms so we can fit large objects into tiny storage spaces.
However, once we started researching this technology, we moved our advancement by centuries. We were able to travel to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Our spaceships had artificial gravity and we built bigger, more powerful ships to defend us. It wasn't anything that would challenge you or your people, but it was the next step for us.
What we did though was to get some of the best minds to translate the language. That was actually Vanna Briefs thought."
"Wait, Vanna knows about this?" Gohan interrupted. Vanna was Bulla's grandchild and was believed to be the smartest member of the Brief family since Bulma He was also married to a saiyan and while he was not a super saiyan, he was still a capable fighter. Gohan spoke to him frequently. "He never said anything to the rest of us!"
"Yes, Mr Briefs signed a confidentiality agreement," Colonel Atkinson replied. "We knew that we couldn't do anything that would hurt him directly so we didn't even waste our breath with threatening him like we normally would."
"You threaten people?" Gohan asked roughly, starting to feel angry.
"We do whatever we need to, to keep our people safe from harm," she replied coolly. "The average person hasn't been ready to deal with this sort of thing. They would be afraid. I believe you saw the confusion and chaos that was caused in the aftermath of the being known as Cell. The people were lucky they had Mr Hercule Satan as a person who was ready to claim the adulation. They were so eager to make sense of something they couldn't make sense of that they believed a story of him winning against that creature. Anyone could have taken ten seconds to check up on his story and seen how many holes there were in it, but they didn't because they were desperate to believe in something that they could understand. Magic men that can fly and shoot fire out of their hands were too much for them a hundred and fifty years ago. So every time a situation came up that would have caused social upheaval, we have done what is necessary. Then we got into space and found these ruins. Then those ruins lead us to this." She pointed to the first picture, the one of the weird blue tuning fork. "And this led us to the rest of the galaxy."
"Oh, so that's how you go between planets," Gohan said, looking thoughtfully at the photo. "I had thought that you were just able to fly like we did."
"We do, a little," the woman said, nodding. "Due to this unusual element, we call it element zero as it has a total atomic mass of zero, we can travel faster than the speed of light, or FTL. But these," she pointed at the first photo again, "they let us travel far beyond that. Our fastest ships right now allow us to travel slightly under nine light years a day."
"Huh," Gohan said, thinking back to his flight to Namek. "Our ship barely managed two light years a day when we flew."
"So ours are faster," Colonel Atkinson said dismissively. "The fact is these artefacts allow us to travel more than fifteen hundred light years in less than a second."
"Wow," Gohan said, thinking about it. "That is impressive."
She gave him a wry look. "Not as impressive as being able to travel the full length of the universe instantly," she countered. "Which actually brings me closer to my point for this meeting. These artefacts, which we call Mass Relays because that was the translation that was provided in the Mars ruins, have allowed us to be able to expand to the stars. We have settled new worlds and established outposts. We built up our armed forces so that we would be able to protect ourselves from threats that normal people would be able to counter. But we found out that we were wrong."
"What happened?" Gohan asked, feeling a little thrill of dread.
"We had activated a secondary Mass Relay at the edge of the system of one of our colonies, a planet called Shanxi. Once it had stabilised we sent a few probes through, followed by a small scouting force. That scouting force encountered these."
She slid over another photo. It was of some type of spaceship, one that was raptor looking in design. Gohan looked long and hard at the photo and saw that there were actually more of them in the background, just really small.
"Who are they?" he asked.
"We don't know," she admitted. "As far as most of the world is concerned, this is our first true First Contact. Most of them think that your green namekian friend Piccolo is just a guy that wore make up and a body suit for the old World Martial Art Tournaments. People were willing to rationalise Cell, for crying out loud. But this, with this many witnesses, is something that the media has been putting forward to them for more than two centuries. They can understand this and we can't hide something on this scale.
"After we attempted to contact them they attacked us without giving a reply. They then sent a fleet of nearly four hundred ships to Shanxi. This is the last image we received before communications to the colony were cut." She slid over one last photo, this time with hundreds of ships of various sizes.
"So an invasion?" Gohan asked.
"Most likely an attempt at subjugation," Colonel Atkinson replied. "Our problem is that we only had thirty ships to defend the colony. While we know that we have more than a few surprises, thanks to Capsule Corp, they wouldn't be enough to defend against a force that big."
"What did Capsule Corp have to do with it?" Gohan asked.
She gave a small tight smile. "You know how Bulma Briefs created gravity chambers for you and your fellow saiyans to train in? Well, we managed to weaponise them for space combat. Our largest yield is a quick burst of two hundred times Earth standard gravity. That is enough to crush any structure that we know exists, even the prothean ones. Naturally though, we can only safely deploy them in space."
She gave a heavy sigh and her shoulders hunched, as if she had a weight dropped on her. "Now we are assembling a fleet to take the fight back to these aliens and reclaim our colony and its people. The problem is time. We started organising reinforcements three hours ago but it is estimated that they will not arrive at Shanxi for another two and a half days. We need someone there to defend our planet and we need them there a lot faster than that."
Gohan understood. They wanted someone there to fight the alien invasion. Someone that had the ability to get there instantly and be able to protect everyone without having any civilians lose their lives.
They wanted a SSB.
Gohan frowned as he realised what this would mean. "This would reveal us to everyone," he said. "All the people that you kept this from, all of the saiyans that are living on Earth or New Namek, the namekians… all of that would be exposed. People who would be frightened of us would shun us and demand that we leave. There are hundreds of us that call this planet home, who were born here, and this would make the normal humans who we have protected for our entire lives, with our lives, fear and hate us."
"I understand what I am asking," the colonel replied grimly. "Believe it or not, many of us sleep safer at night knowing that you are and have been protecting us for nearly two hundred years. But you are right, many would fear you, and quite rightly so. Your power is enough to make any paranoid person scared. The destruction caused by your enemies can be classified as an extinction level event and you are stronger than those enemies. But you, your father and even beings such as Piccolo and Vegeta who sought to destroy or subjugate this planet have both given their lives to protect it. Those of us important enough know that you are doing the right thing. But because we know that there are those who would seek to make life uncomfortable for you, we can offer you an alternative if you help us. A planet; a new home for your people!"
Gohan sighed and rubbed his head. He felt a headache coming on as he tried to think about it. He hated the idea that aliens were attacking innocent people from the race that he himself was part of. Any alien that was wiping out humans was not something he was happy to abide by. And not just humans; he had fought to keep the namekians safe, the yardrat and half a dozen other alien species safe over the last century and a half. Even the whole universe during the Tournament of Power. Protecting people was his purpose.
He wasn't sure what to think about the offer of a planet. After all, he was born on Earth. Trunks was born on Earth, Goten… in fact, the only two current god-level super saiyans that weren't born on Earth were Goku and Vegeta. This was their home now. To be told that they would be forced to leave it because they protected it would be more than a little infuriating.
"What about the saiyans that don't want to leave?" he asked. "Would you force them to go too? You might think of us as aliens, but this planet is the only one that many of them know. Sure, there are more of them currently on New Namek but this is their place of birth. This is home."
The woman visibly hesitated. "I think you know that we could not force you to go. And there are many that will prefer to stay here as you have, living quietly in hiding, but we are trying to offer you an incentive to protect the people from a threat that we were unprepared for even if it is more conventional to us than you would normally get involved with."
Gohan couldn't help grimacing a little. His dad may not have noticed it, but he did. It wasn't a yes or a no. Still, this wasn't a decision he could make on his own. "I will need to get Vegeta and my dad in on this. After all, the planet offer would be more something for him as the king and dad has been the leader of the Z fighters since the beginning."
Colonel Atkinson frowned. "I was afraid that might be the case. How long until they can get here?"
Gohan closed his eyes. Something that his dad had learned when he was training with King Kai the first time was telepathy. It had been what allowed him to talk to King Kai during his fight with Frieza. After Gohan had learned how to turn SSB, Goku had managed to teach it to Gohan, Trunks and Goten. Gohan had taught his own children, his daughter Pan and his son Gotel. Other than that, only Vegeta and a few others had been taught how to use it. It was something that King Kai had been concerned would be used incorrectly if too many people knew about it and Goku respected his old trainer's request to not teach it too often to people.
So while his eyes were closed he reached out to Vegeta on New Namek. Vegeta?
Vegeta's voice came back almost instantly. What is it? Somehow he even sounded gruff in his mind.
There is something going on here that concerns you and the rest of the saiyans. I need you and dad to come to me. It's urgent.
Kakarot isn't here. He is in the Void Zone with Trunks and Goten. I will be there in a moment. I hope it is as urgent as you say; being a king is busy work and doesn't allow for pointless distractions. The implied threat was there in his mental tone.
Oh trust me, it is. Gohan cut the link with Vegeta and opened his mind up to King Kai. Hey King Kai.
Oh, hey Gohan! Long-time no speak. Heard any new jokes?
Sorry not recently. Most of the saiyans don't have the same sense of humour. But I actually need to get hold of my dad. I need him here pretty urgently but he is in the Void Zone. Can you or Supreme Kai get hold of him and send him back here straight away?
Sure, I will get hold of Supreme Kai right now and get him to send Goku to you.
Thanks King Kai.
Don't be a stranger, Gohan!
Gohan opened his eyes again to see an impatient looking Colonel Atkinson glaring at him. "So when are you going to leave to get the others?" she asked.
He stared back at her, not concerned in the least. "Already done. Vegeta should be here…"
Vegeta appeared right next to him, making the colonel jump slightly.
"… now," Gohan finished. "Dad will be just a few more minutes.
"Knowing Kakarot, he will probably stay there for another year before he actually comes," Vegeta grunted.
Colonel Atkinson looked a little alarmed. "We don't have that long!" she objected.
Gohan chuckled. "No nothing like that," he assured her. "He is in the Void Zone. Time as you know it doesn't exist there. He could be there for the next thousand years but out here it wouldn't pass more than a few seconds and most of that would be the journey in and out of it."
She stared at him wide eyed and made a weird choked off noise. Vegeta just smirked at her expression.
…
Goku had been sparring with Gotenks for the last little while in the Void Zone. It was the ideal place to train and improve their power level, because time didn't exist here and there was literally nothing that could get destroyed. The only way to access it was through the realm of the kais and with the permission of the Supreme Kai himself. Once the first Tournament of Power was over, Goku had been given permission to train with the others who had reached SSG level so that they could do it without fear of damaging anything. They could stay down there for as long as they wanted to because whenever they left, nearly no time had passed in the outside world. It was like an upgraded Hyperbolic Time Chamber, without the chance of blowing a hole in the reality and escaping like evil Buu once did.
Goku had been battling in SSR form as Gotenks was fighting at full combined SSB power. The power boost Goten and Trunks got meant that Goku needed to be at least SSR just to keep up. The explosions of their hits connecting didn't even echo in the Void.
Goku blocked a flurry of punches and kicked out a feint at Gotenks shoulder. He immediately shot a ki blast into their stomach, knocking the wind out of them and when they leant forward in response, hit them with a bladed hand to the base of the neck.
Gotenks immediately split into Goten and Trunks and they both collapsed unconscious to the stone stage.
Goku released his SSR form and returned to his base level, grinning to himself about his victory. It had been a good fight but even though Trunks and Goten were powerful fighters and smart people, whenever they merged into Gotenks, they always became overconfident. They wanted to show off. It made it easy to pick weak spots, even though they were far more powerful.
"Goku!" a familiar voice called out. He turned and saw Supreme Kai floating towards him.
"Hey!" he called out cheerfully. "Good to see you Supreme Kai."
"You too!" the mystic replied. He looked over the unconscious forms of Goten and Trunks. "I see that I came at the right time."
Goku just gave a big grin and rubbed the back of his head with his hand.
"I am here because Gohan says he needs you to see him immediately," Supreme Kai continued. "He said it was urgent."
"Oh, sure," Goku said. He looked back down at Trunks and Goten as they started to stir. "I guess this is as good a time as any. Does he want all of us or just me?"
"I think just you should be fine," the kai replied.
"Ok, if you can take us all to King Kai and I will just go to Gohan from there that would be great."
Not much time passed before Goku found himself transmitted into a room with Vegeta, Gohan and a strange short woman in a military uniform.
"Hey Gohan, hi Vegeta," he said cheerfully. "What's up? And who are you?" he asked the woman.
"I am Colonel Lacy Atkinson, Alliance Intelligence services," she introduced herself, staring at him warily. "Good to meet you Son Goku."
"Sure, you too!" he replied. "So why are we here?"
"There's something that concerns our people," Gohan said. He launched into the story.
When he finished Vegeta was looking that the woman using what Goku had come to recognize as his 'thoughtful glare'.
"You want us to save your people in exchange for a planet of our own?" he said in his raspy voice. "So my people that were born here would no longer be welcome?"
"Not what I am saying," the lady said carefully, looking at Vegeta cautiously. "Those that still want to live here would be able to, assuming they do so according to the laws that we have in place. I assume that you would still mostly keep to yourselves like you have been. It would just mean that you would have your own territory that people would recognize as being sovereign saiyan land. We in the Alliance would like to make an official treaty with you, to have the saiyan people and the humans of the Alliance, and even the namekians if they are willing, be official friends at all levels. We could trade resources and infrastructure. Assist you in building up your new home. You don't need us to help you in a military capacity but there are other benefits an Alliance between our peoples could provide. But we need a fast reaction force over Shanxi now to protect our people from further harm and our own forces will take too long to get there. That is why we have come to you now instead of continuing with the pretense that we don't know you are here. You are able to get there faster and you can protect the people there and take out the aliens who are attacking if they refuse to cease their activities. Already they have killed our researchers and scientists that were investigating the Relay at the borders of the system. As communications to the colony have not been restored it is likely that they have been attacking the defenders. How long must we wait for your help?"
Goku felt angry. Attacking innocent people was always something that made him angry. He went out of his way to make sure that innocent people were not hurt in his fights. Gohan was the same. Even Vegeta now cared enough now to make sure that if there were any rogue saiyans or other conflicts then they were handled away from cities so that no one got hurt. He looked to see how the others were taking the news.
Gohan was certainly not happy. Goku wasn't sure if it was about whether or not because people were being hurt for no reason or if it was because the way that the saiyans were being asked to leave their homes. Vegeta, on the other hand, looked thoughtful.
"Well, it would certainly make things easier to have all the saiyans in the same place," he said, cocking his head as he considered the matter. "Though that was what almost got all of our people killed the first time around."
"Well, I am in for helping," Goku interjected. "Who knows, maybe they'll have some strong fighters out there!"
"Kakarot, you know that the next Tournament is only another twenty years away," Vegeta growled. "I guarantee that the other Universes should have someone for you by then. On the other hand, I need to think of what is best for my people, as their king." He turned to Gohan. "What do you think?"
Gohan's face hardened. "I think that there are people who need to be protected and we are wasting time," he said shortly. "But, we need to make sure that no one comes for the dragon balls like Vegeta and Frieza did. Otherwise you might end up with another situation like what happened with Zamasu and Future Trunks."
Goku nodded seriously as Vegeta grunted in approval. "You always were the smarter one of you two," he said. The king looked at the woman. "Very well," he said. "In exchange for our help, you will gift my people with a new planet and we can forge an official alliance. But you must never reveal anything that you or your government know concerning the dragon balls, our technology, the kais or anything regarding the threats that we have fought without our express permission. Otherwise," he leaned forward and let his ki out in threatening flare, "you will see how far we will go to protect the galaxy from those that would use such things in the wrong ways."
The woman visibly paled but to her credit she didn't pull away from Vegeta's threat. "Understood," she replied. "On behalf of the Systems Alliance, I thank you for your assistance and look forward to a long and prosperous future together."
He nodded, his mouth twisted in his customary smirk. "Gohan, take Garlack, Kori and Andur and head to Shanxi. Kakarot, you go to Dende and secure at least three of the dragon balls so that none may use them without the Guardian's permission. I will tell our people of these developments."
Gohan nodded and vanished instantly. Goku raised his hand to his forehead and prepared to use his instant transmission, locking onto Dende's ki. As he was about to leave he heard the last exchange between Vegeta and the military lady.
"Before I go, tell me about this planet you are giving to us," the king said.
"It's a garden world with nearly twice the gravity of Earth at the edge of our current space," she replied. "Our people that discovered it have called it Mindoir."
...
A/N
SS = super saiyan
SSB = super saiyan blue
SSR = super saiyan rose
SSW = super saiyan white
SSG = super saiyan god
SS Red = super saiyan red. This is according to a fan theory I saw on youtube the other day. Don't expect it to be mentioned much here.