A/N Pretty sure my bank tells me that I still don't own this.
Hi to all of you readers. Thank you for your patience. I had originally planned on having this out more than a month ago but I had pushed myself too hard working 60-80 hour weeks and had burnt out a little. I needed to be able to get my head back in the game. Then this chapter kept taking for ages because I was trying to get reactions right and figure out which information I wanted to keep and what could be deleted. The end result is still the largest chapter in this book so far. But from here on out, updates won't be as regular as they were prior to Christmas. I will still be working on them but the new chapters will come when they are done. I am not going to force myself to complete it if it is making me lose sleep for days at a time. I hope that you are all understanding of that but the choices I am facing are to slow down and continue or keep going full pace, burn out and quit the story. 'Slow down' is my preferred choice.
Comments:
Ioshua, WBXtreme234, All Guests, ShortyMcCoy, Rankin de Merthyr, EvilTheLast, marcelo muniz, dlowe265, Sir Cookie, gaul1, nightmaster000, Fokusas, frankieu, EntertainmentChampion, 3697014, LordXaero, victor0606 – thank you all
random123games – basically
dloold87 – that is what I was aiming for. Couldn't have only the saiyans with courage.
DragonBlade00 – something to think about for later chapters
Sun Zelretch – haven't revealed anything yet on the genophage for this story. Only said I would consider a couple of things. Might change my mind… again.
Talonsen – yeah I know, normally that meeting would have been cancelled immediately, but I just wanted something to show that Drescher was a strong leader and that humans won't be cowed. Glad you like the story though.
HOREB 15 – well, I am think of something for any (x) but don't want to reveal who yet.
Guest-Questioner – like I said earlier, this mostly takes place in the ME timeline but the events of DBZ timline are taken into account. As for how the years are measured, it will be done in ME timeline. Yes it is an AU of sorts. And yes, some turian bashing but not irredeemable.
The Lone Swordswolf – yeah I mentioned that the furries and such will be here but they will not really take any significant part of the story, kina like it is in DBS.
On with the story!
…
CHAPTER 9 – THE CITADEL
Tevos was fuming.
Everything was already on tenterhooks as it was with the threat of war looming over their heads and despite that Sparatus had gone behind the Council's back and had the primarchs send the turian First, Second, Third and Fifth Fleets to the Citadel in a display of force to intimidate the humans and their allies when they arrived. It had taken the combined efforts of Tevos and Valern to overrule the pride of the turian councillor and send the fleets back to turian space. It was the worst possible start to negotiations with the new races. It was an immediate sign of disharmony and false braggadocio to an alliance of species that had easily bested the turians in combat.
She was just grateful that Matriarch Lidanya had thought to step in when she did.
The problem was that the humans and saiyans would now have an upper hand; an upper hand that they really shouldn't have had. She had not even been aware that the turian fleets had been arriving. She had locked herself in her office and had been preparing for this meeting, going over reports and eventually having a nap to make sure that she was fully alert for this momentous meeting. It hadn't helped that Sparatus had placed a hush order, claiming that Tevos would be told when she had finished her preparations. It had led to a short but vicious conversation between the two of them that had only been interrupted by the arrival of the human diplomatic party. In the moment of confusion Tevos had taken the opportunity to send the turian fleets back.
Now Sparatus was sulking. It made her want to claw her eyes out. No, not her eyes. His.
Things were finally settling down now. It had taken more than two hours for the turian fleets to leave the system, even with the large number of relays they were using, but the last ships were transitioning through the relays and the human ships would touch down in the visitors docking bay any moment now.
"Councillor Tevos," Tela Vasir said, interrupting her musings. "We just had word from Irissa's security detail. The humans have arrived."
Tevos frowned slightly. "Just the humans?" she asked. "Not the saiyans as well?"
A quick exchange later. "No, just the humans," Vasir confirmed. "Apparently the saiyans will… teleport in shortly. They are apparently waiting until they sensed the humans had landed. It should only be another few minutes, according to the human ambassador."
Those words again. Teleport. Sensing. Her deep conversation and even her subsequent melding to relive the exchange in Irissa's mind had left her unconvinced that the humans and saiyans were actually referring to technology. She thought about the fact that the mind meld was considered an ability of the asari that the other races were unable to copy. Perhaps teleporting and sensing were the abilities of the saiyans.
"I see," she said, keeping her tone neutral. "Well, if that is the case then we just need to await the arrival of the humans." In one sense it was highly annoying. The new races dock was purposely built several kilometres away from the Presidium in a tactic that would tire out the visitors on their tour before they met with the Council. She had hoped that the saiyans would have been part of it if for no other reason than to try tire them out too.
A grumbling across the table drew her attention to Councillor Sparatus, Tevos' largest headache. She had not even known that her turian counterpart had ordered the fleets here until they started streaming through the relays. Despite all his claims about it being for the protection of the Citadel, he had unwillingly let slip that he wanted the aliens to be aware of the might of the turians and the Council races as a show of force. Once the humans had made their demands that the turians leave, Sparatus had protested, claiming that it could be a trap to leave the Citadel unprotected so that the humans could attack. She had argued back and forth with him for a few minutes before Valern had obviously gotten tired of watching and had gone along with Tevos, overruling the turian.
All in all, it was almost as bad as the situation Irissa had found herself in during her own meeting. Tevos couldn't believe the stupidly trigger-happy people that wanted nothing more than to destroy. Why were so many people interested in starting a war when this was supposed to be a meeting of peace?
They had only just finished their arguing as they attempted to reconcile as much as possible in order to show a united front. It mostly worked but she was still concerned that Sparatus would shoot his mouth off in the meeting.
"Councillors, it's time," Spectre Vasir spoke up.
As one, they all stood and moved over to their places at the platform above the open area the human ambassadors would be arriving at. Below them arranged in a wide semi-circle were the ambassadors for each of the Council races, starting with the batarians on her far left, then the hanar, the elcor, the volus, the salarian, the turian with a spot for Irissa on the far right when she arrive with the humans and saiyans.
Finally, Matriarch Irissa arrived with two human women, their guards and the… four saiyans. By the Goddess, they really did look like they were all one race. One of the humans was pale skinned with head fur that went to her shoulders that was dark and flecked with grey and was dressed in an obviously military uniform with medals displayed on the left breast. The other had darker skin, nearly brown in colour, with dark head fur that was wrapped in an intricate manner around the back of her head. She was wearing clothes that were more obviously civilian which told Tevos that this was Anita Goyle the ambassador. The two humans had three guards trailing behind them, carrying odd looking pistols on their hips. The humans walked to the middle of the open area and stopped nearly in the centre of the room.
For the saiyans, three of them had dark, wild head fur while the last had a pale lilac head fur that went down to his shoulders. While she didn't want to assume too much, she could tell that the saiyans were all extremely well-muscled. But more than that, she felt something; something that she had only felt in the presence of the most powerful matriarchs. Power. The presence that they had was almost intoxicating in its intensity. While they outwardly looked similar to the humans, the hidden presence that she felt coming from them far surpassed even the strongest matriarchs by several orders of magnitude.
It was both exhilarating and terrifying beyond words.
…
Anita had to admit that the Citadel was rather pretty, in a completely artificial way. Oh, it was certainly an impressive feat of architectural engineering and the placement in the nebula created a fantastic view for anyone looking out into space. The problem was that she knew it was all a lie.
The records that had been translated from the Mars archives the protheans had left behind were clear in their warnings about the true nature of the Citadel and its placement here by the reapers. The geniuses from Capsule Corp and Nova Corp were more than capable of finding that out. Had they not been on good terms with the saiyans then the alliance might have had cause to worry. Still, despite there not being an officially written up treaty, she knew that Goku and his family at least, probably Vegeta's too, would defend Earth if it ever came under such a threat. They had proven that time and again over the last two centuries. Still, they had other colonies to worry about as well so while Earth would be the obvious fall back point, the Alliance would need to be prepared to protect their own people.
That was why the Alliance had been able to convince Capsule Corp to come up with a way to weaponise their gravity systems that the saiyans used for their training, as she found out from Goku earlier in the week. They had other weapon projects that they had been working on but the details were unknown to Anita, purely because there was no need for an ambassador to be privy to military secrets.
There was a large crowd of people watching them from the moment they landed, spectators and journalists she suspected. They were behind some waist-high barriers and were staring curiously at Anita, Drescher and their three guards. A small welcoming committee was also in front of the crowd, clearly expecting them. There were two of the female asari aliens in long dresses, two lizard looking aliens that the files had said were called salarians, and two of the turians standing in the background. Anita couldn't help noticing that the turians were looking tense, clearly not happy with how things were proceeding.
"Ambassador Anita Goyle," a purple alien woman that she recognised as the asari ambassador Irissa greeted her as she stepped forward from the welcoming committee. "I welcome you and Admiral Kastanie Drescher to the Citadel." She punctuated her words with a polite little nod.
"Ambassador Irissa," Anita replied formally. "Greetings to you and your allied species on behalf of the Human Systems Alliance. We hope that our talks here can successfully create at least a peace between our governments." She gave a small nod of her own.
Anita couldn't help smiling slightly. "I thank you on behalf of the Alliance, however, we do not have the representatives from the saiyans. They will be here momentarily."
"But we haven't seen any shuttle… oh," the asari stammered looking down at her glowing wrist computer. "I forgot. How long until they teleport here?"
"They are coming," the admiral said in a slightly far off tone, obviously in mind contact with the saiyans. Anita couldn't help feeling the tiniest bit left out. "In three, two, one… now."
Four saiyans blinked into existence.
The watching aliens went a little crazy at the method of arrival and Anita saw one of the guards reach towards the pistol at the side of his hip. The flashes of cameras were nearly blinding as the journalists did their thing and Anita found herself feeling resigned at the idea that the paparazzi were the same regardless of the species. Some things were universal, after all.
She took a look at the saiyans and immediately recognised the muscular forms of Goku and Vegeta; Goku as her escort from before and Vegeta as the king who left an impression. She took a look at the other two and recognised Gohan standing in his orange gi. The last one looked different that the rest in that his hair was not black and wild but was a faint lilac colour and hung straight down to his shoulders. He was just as muscled as the others and stood tall and confident. Sure of himself. Whoever he was, if he came with the saiyans, that meant he was important and powerful.
The asari ambassador suddenly appeared slightly more nervous than she had before. "Greetings King Vegeta of the saiyans," she said bowing her head slightly in a polite gesture of greeting, not low enough to be considered deferring. "On behalf of the Citadel Council, I welcome you and your party to the Citadel. I hope that you and your people are well."
Vegeta, in a manner that didn't surprise Anita in the slightest, grunted dismissively as he looked around the giant space station. His expression was not impressed in the slightest.
"Yeah, sure," he said pinning the asari ambassador with a glare. "Let's get on with it. I have things to do and don't have the patience to spend unlimited leisure time on a sparkly tomb in space."
Anita fought very hard at hiding the smile that was threatening to break out on her face at the look of stunned horror that the purple alien was openly showing at that description of their shiny space station.
"Ah… yes… well, if you will follow me," Ambassador Irissa said, recovering her composure. "I shall lead the way with a short tour while we make our way to the Citadel Tour."
The guards behind her formed up as an escort detail and the humans and saiyans stepped up and moved forward, following the purple asari and her fellow, thus far silent, representatives.
Anita found herself walking next to Goku again. The ever cheerful saiyan was looking around with an interested smile on his face; not awed by the sights but certainly curious. His orange jumpsuit was definitely out of place with what she would have expected to have at a meeting as important as this but none of the saiyans seemed to care. Vegeta was wearing the same breastplate over a red skin-tight suit this time, his muscles seeming to be sketched into the fabric.
"Hello again Goku," Anita said, walking next to him. "How have you been?"
"Hey Anita!" Goku beamed at her. "Good to see you again. Yeah, pretty good. I have been kinda busy helping train some of the super saiyans with Gohan and Whis and Lord Beerus have been trying to get some of the other galaxies up in their strength so that we don't have to worry about King Zeno getting unhappy with us again."
Having had a small chat with Gohan after the last meeting with the aliens, Anita knew that those were some very important individuals. Hearing how casually Goku talked about them gave her perspective about how high in the metaphorical food chain he really was. It made her shiver at how much power this man really had, how much she could do with such power. She shook off those thoughts after a moment.
"Sounds intense," she said. "Uh, question though, who is the new guy?" she indicated the lilac-haired individual walking next to Vegeta.
"Oh that's Trunks. He's Vegeta's son and the crown prince. Though I guess he won't become king until Vegeta becomes a God of Destruction somewhere, so that could be another couple of thousand years."
Anita let that sink in, glad that her ambassadorial training was sufficient enough to stop her stunned expression to show through. "Oh."
The walk was slow and dull. Irissa tried to point out different places of interest to the parties, such as the statue of the krogan near the embassies. While Goku looked somewhat interested in the krogan and the other saiyans spared the monument a brief look at hearing of a warrior race, they all turned away at the hearing of the defeated aliens, obviously coming to some sort of conclusion that they were not up to the level of the saiyans. Anita started to suspect that the long walk to the Citadel tower was not just for the tour but also a way to tire out visitors before the actual meeting. Otherwise they would just have been able to take one of the shuttle cars that were flying around the place. They had passed half a dozen public terminals for them in the last half hour. But if the Citadel aliens were hoping for tired and submissive visitors at the end of the walk, which took about two and a half hours, then they would be sorely disappointed. The saiyans were clearly the absolute peak of physical fitness, the human guards and Admiral Drescher were all reasonable fit and had the discipline that had developed from spending hours doing parade drills standing at attention and Anita had spent so much time at functions spending hours upon boring hours on her feet listening to someone waffle on over unimportant matters. A couple hours of walking were not going to tire out anyone.
Finally they reached the base of the tower and entered an elevator.
"Is there anything else we need to know before we go into this meeting?" Anita asked Irissa.
"There will be a small introduction to all of the representatives of the signatory races," Irissa said casually. "They may wish for a small recap of your histories, but the general idea will be that we are here not just to introduce you to the Citadel but also to negotiate the peace treaty. Those negotiations will be in the private chamber beyond the gallery."
Anita nodded and watched through the glass window as the elevator shot upwards at impressive speed towards their destination.
The elevator stopped and they piled out, walking up several flights of stairs. Anita noticed that the human guards were looking around in awe but Drescher and the saiyans merely looked bored. Clearly as far as they were concerned, this was only a waste of time before the actual meeting.
The group finally arrived at the public gallery and there were dozens of different aliens from each of the representative species in the upper wings watching. There was an extended line on their level with one member of each race waiting, save for an empty spot in the middle where Irissa was obviously meant to go. Slightly behind and above them on a raised platform that was metaphorical in what these aliens considered their obvious place in the galaxy were three more aliens, one asari, a turian male and a salarian that she assumed was a male but had no real knowledge if it was or not. She watched as Irissa moved to take her place in the line and the three aliens
"Greetings," the purple woman said. "I am Councillor Tevos Telessia, representative of the Asari Republics to the Citadel Council. With me are Councillors Sparatus Arcelien of the Turien Hierarchy and Molen Valern of the Salarian Union. On behalf of all Council races, I welcome you to the Citadel…"
"About time you got here," Sparatus grumbled from her right. Tevos shot him a warning look.
"If you had wanted us to be here earlier then you should have set the meeting earlier. Don't blame us for your own incompetence," the armoured saiyan king grunted out, crossing his arms. "The only people who dictate times that way are superiors to underlings. We are neither to you."
Tevos frowned. She clearly had really hoped to avoid any aggressive tone at this meeting. Anita guessed she had to prevent any escalation of tensions right now.
"Well, we do thank you for attending here today," she continued, staring straight at the man. "Though it saddens us all that it comes under a cloud of sadness due to our circumstances. Below us are the various ambassadors for all client members of the Citadel community." She went through naming all the ambassadors and their species. Anita knew that she wouldn't be remembering them all today. Not that she probably needed to just yet. "Now," the asari continued, "as we have introduced ourselves, will you please do the same?"
Anita stepped forward, drawing the collective attention towards her and many surprised looks that she had chosen to speak fluently in Palava, the turian native language. "Greetings on behalf of the Humans System Alliance," she began confidently. "I am Ambassador Anita Goyle, chosen by our president, Marcus White, to represent our people at these peace talks. With me is Admiral Kastanie Drescher, commander of the Second Fleet. These are our guards." She gestured to the soldiers standing behind her.
"Welcome to you both," the salarian councillor. He turned to the saiyan quartet. "I believe that would make you the members of the saiyan race?"
Vegeta stepped forward. "Indeed. I am Vegeta, king of the saiyan people and apprentice God of Destruction to the Angel Whis. With me is my son Trunks, Crown Prince and protector of our world Mindoir; Kakarot, also known as Son Goku, the leader of our elite warriors, Defender of the Universe and of Time; and his son Gohan, Master Trainer of our elite warriors and Defender of Earth and Shanxi." Each of the saiyans nodded in turn. Goku even waved cheerfully. That man was just pleasantness personified.
The aliens murmured amongst themselves for a moment after the introductions had finished. "We welcome you to the Citadel as well, saiyans," the salarian said. "And I must say, those are certainly… interesting titles."
The turian councillor snorted derisively but didn't say anything. Vegeta and Trunk's eyes narrowed slightly as they looked at him. "Each saiyan that has a title of some kind only does so because they have earned it," Vegeta growled. "The only titles that we have used that are automatically conferred are that of king and prince. Even a duke is not a hereditary title in our culture; it must be earned."
"Then could you please explain to me the title of Defender of Time that you announced Kakarot to have?" the asari asked.
The saiyans looked at each other for a moment and obviously had a quick mental discussion before Vegeta nodded. Goku stepped forward slightly.
"Just over a hundred years ago there were some pretty powerful ki users in another galaxy that had found a way to travel through time," he said, looking up at the salarian. "The Supreme Kai sent us to look into it because they were trying to go into the past to alter different events and set up things so that they would be able to rule their galaxy as warlords and tyrants, which is forbidden by King Zeno, the king of all nine universes. They told us so how to travel through time ourselves we were able to find them but they managed to escape and head into the future. We gave chase and it went back and forward like that until we finally defeated them and their army. Because of that, Supreme Kai named me as the Defender of Time. Now there is a whole organisation that polices time travel called the Time Patrol."
The salarian's eyes bugged out at the mention of time travel. "Such technology to travel through time… it is impossible according to our own understanding!"
"Yeah well, I was taken through time a couple of times before to stop the mad Kai Zamasu from destroying his universe before then so it wasn't a first for me." Gohan and Trunks shot him a quick look that wasn't quite a glare and Goku stopped talking. Anita watched the exchange with interest. Somehow she got the feeling that it hadn't been the only other time that they had travelled through time.
The murmuring got even louder among the salarians and asari spectators.
"Clearly this conversation is creating questions that we hope that you will answer so that we may understand what you mean better. But that may be for a later time. Perhaps for now you could tell us about your individual histories?" the lizardman continued. "I am sure that we would all be fascinated by the tale of your peoples."
Anita nodded and looked over at Vegeta so see who would go first. He gave a conceding nod, indicating that she should so she took a step forward.
"Thank you," she began. "For humanity, we are a fairly new race to reach the stars. We reached our moon only about two hundred years ago. A hundred years before that, we didn't even have the technology to fly at all. We presented an OSD to the Citadel ambassador Irissa, detailing a short history of our people. It is admittedly a mixed bag of accomplishments and failures. We are an honest enough people to acknowledge many of our faults instead of burying them, only for them to come out and cause more harm at a later date.
"Human history has been littered with violence. In the last eight hundred years of recorded history, there has not been any more than twenty five consecutive years without a war of some kind being declared. In the last two hundred years we have had two full planetary wards that led to the deaths of millions of soldiers and civilians alike, and another attempted hostile conquering by an independent terrorist faction known as the Red Ribbon Army. We have learned new and better ways to kill our enemies, with more destructive means. You know all of this; it was in the information that was provided to you on the OSD. For those who have not heard it, I shall make the same historical information available to the general public before we depart the Citadel. The sad realisation is that with our history, even if the saiyans had not been in a position to aid us during the illegal assault on our people at Shanxi," she noticed that there were a few obvious winces and grumblings, "our people would have been prepared through our martial training, traditions and abilities to fight and defend ourselves to the bitter end if needs be. As the accomplished admiral next to me can attest and the turian prisoners we currently hold would agree, it would have been a costly and devastating war of attrition on your behalf and we would have fought until either we had been eliminated or you had either submitted or been destroyed as we would not allow ourselves to subjected to the bonds of servitude.
"But along with the chaos and destruction of battle and war, we carved out for ourselves cultural identities. We promoted art, education for the masses, entertainment and peace. We actually despise wars but our ways demands satisfaction in defence of either our lives or the defence of our friends. We are an admittedly contradictory people who crave peace and arm for war. We seek the beautiful things of the galaxy and take joy in family and friends, personal accomplishments and goals and successes. Our unique planet has given us an abundance of different cultures, languages and people, both human, who make up our vast majority, and furry, who have evolved from some of our other species to have sentient intelligence.
"Shortly after we started to explore our solar system we came across the saiyans who had landed on our home world and brought with them the protection to face enemies who we were not ready to face. Since that time we have had a fruitful relationship with them of mutual desires for peace and survival, as we have had far too many instances where we have come across being and governments that would seek our extinction. Son Goku, Son Gohan, King Vegeta and his son Prince Trunks have all of them spent the last two hundred years defending us from these more powerful threats."
"It was shortly after our scientists discovered prothean ruins on a planet in our solar system, along with a very significant supply of element zero that our technological focus shifted. Some of our scientists were satisfied with the idea of using the base functions to create technology straight away and be happy with that while our more reasonable and rational minds decided that the best way to proceed was to actually translate the archives first in their entirety so that we would know everything that came up. It took nearly eight years of dedicated research by some of our brightest minds, including a half saiyan researcher, but we finally had a full translation of everything that the prothean records told us. Technology, history and navigational charts were all mentioned. With that knowledge, we headed out into the mass relay system and started going expanding our worlds. We have been doing this over the last hundred or so years at a steady pace and were content to do so peacefully until we were attacked by a rather large turian force who murdered an unarmed scientist crew."
There was the distinct shifting of uncomfortable people that seemed oddly human for an alien assembly such as this.
"Excuse this one," the floating jellyfish that was the hanar ambassador, its body flashing with different lights. "But did you say that you have a full translation of the Enkindlers' language?"
Anita frowned for a moment. "Enkindlers?"
"That is the hanar name for the protheans," Irissa cut in helpfully.
"Oh, I see. Yes, we are fluent in the prothean language, or at least our computer systems are. I myself am not."
That led to an enormous amount of excited whisperings. The turian ambassador, whose name she didn't really care to remember, stepped forward. "How have you managed to do this in such a short amount of time? We have dedicated researchers working for the last two thousand years or more who are still unable to compile perfect translations of the prothean language."
"And yet you have been happy to copy their technology without the hard work of understanding them?" Drescher interjected, her voice dry and cutting. "You were happy to move into their mausoleum without even learning the truth about it?"
The whispers cut off and there were many looks that were sent their way that Anita guessed were a range of surprise and consternation, going by the asari anyway.
Vegeta grunted. "Morons," he growled softly enough to only be heard by the humans and saiyans.
"Could you explain that please?" the salarian councillor, Valern, asked.
"Perhaps that conversation is best left for later," Anita cut in smoothly. "Right now we are getting side-tracked. We are basically finished with our overview of human history. We have no need for yours, as we have your summary on your OSD, but perhaps we can move on to our friends here."
Prince Trunks stepped forward, looking up confidently at the assembled politicians. "The history of the saiyans is sadly filled with holes," he began. "We know that we have been travelling through the stars for more than a thousand years and that we originated from another galaxy, though we lack specifics in both. Our original home world was named Sadala. Our surviving stories from those days agreed that we were not the most technologically advanced, though we were competent enough to have been spacefaring, but we had a system close to ours who were incredibly technologically advanced. We don't remember their name but we know that they used us for our abilities as natural ki users to provide protection for them. Unfortunately, about twelve hundred years ago, we had a civil war. One of our people had become powerful but he was not mentally stable. He led a revolution and the result of it all led to the complete destruction of our home world. The survivors were driven out by our former friends and neighbours and we had to find a new place to call home. We came to a new planet that was called Plant. Our ancestors conquered the planet and renamed it Vegeta."
A small amount of muttering from the assembled politicians over that information told Anita that thy were not particularly happy with that
"After some centuries during which our people rebuilt we were contacted and annexed by the Interplanetary Trade Organisation. It was the closest thing that we had to a multi-species government but was run completely by one family from a race called arcossian. The figurehead was known as King Cold but the day to day operations were run by a man called Frieza, King Cold's second son. They took control of the saiyan people, and about fifty other races, and used us for our strength as warriors to conquer planets and destroy the native peoples. Frieza would then come in, clean the planet up and sell it for its resources to the highest bidder."
This time the outcry from the listening politicians was much more noticeable, particularly from the blue and purple asari. The salarians were twitching uncomfortably, the turians twitching their hands like they wanted to have a weapon in it. The only ones that were not completely opposed to this were the four-eyed batarians. Going by what she had learned about the batarians from the turian prisoners on Shanxi, Anita wasn't surprised at that.
"How could you do such a thing?" one of the ambassadors one their level cried out. It was the jellyfish-looking one, the hanar. Anita had already forgotten its name.
Trunks just shrugged. "While our people were strong, we were not the strongest ones in the universe at that time. Frieza on his own was far more powerful than entire rest of the saiyan species combined. But we know that you are not so clean-handed yourselves. After all, taking over a species and using them to fight for you to wipe out another race… isn't that the same thing that the salarians did to the krogan and the rachni?"
There was more uncomfortable shifting as the politicians did that. Clearly they had not expected Trunks to have that information. It certainly wasn't on the OSD that had been provided by Irissa.
"We were similar to the krogan in that way but at the same time, we were not even as equal as they were to you. We were not an uplifted race of warriors given our own identity and government. We were slaves to a private organisation. We did our jobs or we were killed without mercy.
"After several decades of this, some of our people were becoming unhappy with our roles as slaves. We were tired of being used to cause genocide after genocide, done on the whims of a madman. Our adult warriors were being killed. Our children were being sent to destroy new worlds…"
"Excuse me," the salarian ambassador, Linron, interrupted. "Did you say children?"
"Yes," Trunks replied evenly. "Under the rule of King Cold it became standard practice to test every new born child for their power levels. If a child still had their tail and was able to transform then they were sent off in a specially designed ship that would provide them with enough nutrients for a few months journey and they would be sent to a new sufficiently weak planet and wait for their transformation to their Oozaru form. They would then transform and destroy any and all inhabitant and then be taken back in once the second wave arrived to take over the clean-up.
"So our people had become tired and displeased with this practice and had discovered that Frieza was afraid of us. He was afraid that one day one of our people would be able to transform into a super saiyan and would be strong enough to resist him. So one day, he flew his ship to our planet and destroyed it and everyone on it. The asteroid field that was left had no rocks larger than a few square metres."
Another outcry of shock and disbelief. Anita noticed the turian councillor though. He was staring at Prince Trunks and had folded his arms. She didn't know anything really about turian body language but she had a feeling that he wasn't buying the story. Anita had to admit though that if she didn't know better by now that she would have trouble believing it.
"The only people who were still alive were a few warrior teams, a couple of children who had been sent away to other worlds and the peaceful non-combatants who worked in meat processing facilities throughout Frieza's empire. What had once been billions was now down to less than two million.
"We found refuge with another race, known as the namekians, who sheltered our remnants on their world and showed us nothing but compassion, realising that the work we had been involved with was out of our hands. Some of our people had settled on Earth before planet Vegeta was destroyed and a small number of us lived on Earth and protected it. Eventually, Frieza was defeated in combat by Goku here on a battle that led to a planet being destroyed. The people were safely evacuated before that happened and Goku was able to flee before its destruction. Somehow Frieza survived due to the fact that arcossians don't need to breathe air and so can survive in space, and managed to come to Earth with the plan of getting revenge on Goku and his family. It was there that I defeated him and killed him before Goku arrived."
A palpable sense of relief passed through the listeners. Anita got the feeling that not many truly believed what was being said but they were at least captivated by the story. She certainly was.
"Some years passed and we settled onto a new home world, this time one that didn't have a native people on it. We have been in involved in many different conflicts over the last two centuries. The Kais that rule the universe and the God of Destruction have deemed us useful in protection against the powerful warlords of various strengths around the universe. We were proclaimed as worthy of their interest. Mostly though, we are rebuilding our people and creating a home for ourselves, while King Vegeta, Master Goku, Master Gohan and myself get ready for the next Tournament of Power with the other eight universes…"
"Oh come on!" Sparatus burst out angrily. "What do you people take us for? This nonsense you have been spurting out about power and kais and gods. I can't believe that you are wasting our time on such drivel!"
"Sparatus!" the purple asari councillor spat out. "You do not speak that way to dignitaries like this! I agree that it is hard to believe but…"
"Hard to believe?" Sparatus interrupted incredulously. "Hard to believe?! Tevos, this is the biggest load of talon rot I have ever heard!"
A heavy and powerful pulse of energy suddenly crackled all electronics in the vicinity, cutting off all further outbursts. Anita looked at the saiyans and saw that Vegeta's hair was rustling slightly. Even without a breeze.
"Drivel?" he growled softly, his voice dangerous. "Nonsense? You spit on our history, our abilities and our struggles without even a clue of how small this pathetic little galaxy is compared to the struggles we have faced."
Sparatus was apparently either more courageous or more stupid than Anita would have thought possible for someone in a position of authority to recognise a threat in a diplomatic meeting. He crossed his arms defiantly. "Apparently those struggles weren't that great if you are as powerful as you claim," he grunted.
Another powerful pulse of energy flooded the area, like the wind of a mighty hurricane, bustling any who felt it pass by. Anita almost felt herself being pushed hard enough to fall over and she noticed that Goku and Gohan had moved closer to stand between her and Drescher and Vegeta, who had started to glow faintly.
After another second or so, Vegeta slowly took to the air, floating upwards and moving slowly towards the turian stopped a mere two metres in front of him and now on the same level, five metres above the ground. A few more guards either reached for pistols this time or turned on their wrist computers and started to aim them at Vegeta, only for the pistols to all break and the computers to all spark with electrical discharge and falter.
Vegeta stayed still in the air, glaring directly into the turian's face. The unseen power that he was letting out was palpable, creating an artificial wind and pulsing out a tangible pressure that everyone of all species could feel pushing them away from the floating saiyan.
"Your idiocy is no longer amusing," Vegeta growled, the wind coming of him beating faster as he started to exude more power. "I am now tired of your voice and your lack of respect. If you speak again, I shall be tired enough of your face that I will be more than tempted to remove it from these negotiations."
The purple asari standing closest to the glaring pair gasped but didn't say anything. The lizardman behind her looked like he was watching a game of tennis as his head continuously went back and forth between the two. Anita noticed how tight both appeared to be holding onto the hand rails in front of them to prevent them being blown away.
"You wouldn't dare," the taller alien said mulishly. Anita couldn't help feeling a little respect at the fact that he wasn't curled into the foetal position on the floor in fear. She certainly would have been terrified at the obvious hostility that the saiyan was showing the turian.
Though maybe that's because she knew what the saiyan could actually do that meant she was wiser than the councillor. Regardless, Anita couldn't help but be both worried and grateful. Worried about how this threatening behaviour was causing the rapid deterioration of any chance of peace. Grateful that the power Vegeta was putting out wasn't being aimed at her.
"Wouldn't I?" Vegeta said in a harsh whisper that carried clearly to everyone present. He slowly raised his arm and raised it directly into the turian's face. A tiny ball of energy started to form in his hand, glowing brightly. No one moved out of fear. To Anita it was as if everyone was holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen. The tension was the only thing that was thicker than the power Vegeta continued to put out that was now nearly strong enough to make her feel like she was pushing through a hurricane force wind. The guards in the area all raised their weapons to aim at Vegeta, only to find that their weapons all mysteriously broke in half like the pistols had before. Almost like someone had snapped it faster than they could see.
"Vegeta!" Goku called out sternly, standing strong against the power of Vegeta. Anita noticed with no small envy that the only ones who were unmoved were the other saiyans. "Don't."
As if the tone of Goku's voice was a more direct warning, Vegeta pulled back from the turian slightly. Then he glared at the turian and slowly moved his arm and pointed out to the side and fired the small glowing ball of his energy.
The small glowing ball, barely larger than a baseball, flew away at incredible speed and travelled past the boundaries of the Citadel, zooming out far into space in moments. Anita noticed that every single being regardless of race stared after it as it raced out into the nebula, far away from any of the spaceships or mass relays that were floating in the area.
Nobody, not even the turian councillor, noticed Vegeta clench his fist.
The violence of the explosion far surpassed anything that Anita had witnessed in either real life or through video, save for the brief opening of the Cell games that she had witnessed before the camera had cut out due to energy overload. It was a maelstrom of energy and fire and even from the distance of more than a thousand kilometres it rattled the Citadel, bringing screams out of every single purple alien woman and most of the rest. The ambassadors all gaped up at Vegeta where he was floating, now surrounded by a glowing white haze. Their fear was apparent though as their bodies were all clearly shaking. Half of the remaining spectators had fallen to the floor and were doing their level best to crawl away from the glowing saiyan still floating in front of the councillors.
Anita felt no small amount of pride that neither she nor Admiral Drescher had so much as flinched at the display of power and ability the saiyan king had given. Despite the fact that it was the first time she had personally witnessed it, she knew that the saiyans were far more powerful than that little light show had proved.
"Your mistake," Vegeta's low growl brought every single person's attention back to him as he now stared calmly at the turian councillor with his arm now back at his side, "is that you think you matter. You don't matter. Not to me or any saiyan. You have lots of pieces of metal in space and think yourself mighty. Each saiyan is born with this power and trained from infancy to control it and increase it to the point where they can destroy planets with ease. The four of us here have each got enough power to destroy damn near the entire universe separately. Together we could do it without a challenge. And you, who are clearly so ignorant of any of the challenges that we have faced to save the universe from capitulation to tyrants like Frieza or from simply being erased from existence by King Zeno, think yourself strong and brave enough to insult us and call us liars and deceivers to our faces instead of searching for truth. You are less than nothing. You are no more than a child who can barely wipe itself clean. You put your ancestor's boots on and call yourself grown up." He grunted in disgust. "You're no warrior. You're barely even a man."
"Vegeta," Goku called again into the silence, drawing many eyes away from the ongoing confrontation. Anita noticed that an entire conversation was played out in that one word. In the distant background, sirens could be heard over the Citadel.
Vegeta's head twitched ever so slightly towards Goku; the only outward sign that he had listened to him. He slowly floated back to the human/saiyan delegation stood, the white glow no longer visible as the power died down. He turned and faced the councillors.
"Hear me now," he said, his voice raised so that everyone in the area could hear him. "As king of the saiyan people, I declare that you are not worth my time. We shall not be signing on to become members of your stunted and short-sighted community. We are not at war with you but if you attack either us or the humans then we will be until you either submit or become extinct. We have our alliance with the humans but they are free to join you if they wish to do so without negatively impacting on our existing partnership with the understanding that our friendship comes first. I will assign a member of my race to any embassy or political station that is granted to the humans so as to inform you of any news or threats that we come across that may concern you but they will be completely independent and answerable only to me." He gave out an impressive sneer as he looked back at the turian councillor. "They might also accept a sincere, grovelling, public apology." He turned and looked at his fellow saiyans. "Gohan, Kakarot, stay with the humans and make sure they get away safely after they finish their negotiations. You have my permission to take all necessary steps to prevent their harm and that of all other humans on this blasted Citadel. Trunks, with me." He stared up at the councillors one last time. The asari in particular was gawking. "I will waste no more time on these weak races." With that he put two fingers to his head and blinked out of the area, Trunks following a moment later.
Dead silence followed the departure of the saiyan king as the gathered dignitaries stared in complete and utter shock, clearly trying to sort out the last few minutes. Even the floating jellyfish didn't have flashing lights. Anita looked around and knew she had to take advantage of the situation. This was her forte. She could play these unsettled aliens.
"So," she said, stepping forward and looking up at the councillors, hiding a smug smile. "Now that you have insulted and denigrated the most powerful mortals in our entire universe, shall we begin actually negotiating the Alliance-Citadel peace treaty? Or should we just leave before you call off your security forces?"
…
A/N Please Review/Favourite/Follow as you like.
I took a little liberty there on how the Time Patrol started but it wasn't too much. I also tried to keep responses as realistic as possible, according to the characters that we see from the anime/games. I know that it probably was more DBS than ME in their reactions but I tried to keep it accurate. Hope you enjoyed the read. Until next time!