Arlic:

The sound of gas hissing brought me back into the land of the living as the drowsiness was forced from my body. I was met with the sight of the inside of my Attack Ball and a small viewport that showed the planet I was rapidly approaching.

"Stimulant applied. Awakening sequence completed." An A.I voice informed, "ETA to planet Varme in one minute and thirty seconds. Please brace for entry into the planet's atmosphere and landing."

Gulping down both a sense of anticipation and dread, I grabbed the sides of the seat that I was sitting in. It had been a little over a week since we departed the world I had lived on for my entire life as a saiyan. Yet it felt like we had just left moments ago due to the deep slumber we were put into to make the FTL travel bearable.

Hell, I wasn't even hungry. Which considering that I was now a Saiyan, was an achievement all on its own. The need to consume food in quantities that often boarded on the level of insanity had been so prevalent throughout my life so far that I had fully expected to wake up starving. Yet my stomach was just as full as it was when I left.

"That's one hell of a sleep drug." I muttered.

"Entering the upper atmosphere." My pods' A.I chimed.

Fire licked the edges of my pod as the atmosphere ignited from the sheer friction and speed at which I hit reentry. Moments later I passed through the upper cloud layer and braced myself as I caught my first glimpse of the rapidly approaching alien ground.

I'm sure to anyone that saw my approach, it must've looked like a meteor was hauling ass to the ground at Mach speed.

The ground was coming near incredibly fast. So I did as the computer advised and braced myself.

The pod impacted the land beneath it with such a mighty boom that anyone within a hundred miles would have been rendered deaf had their ears been uncovered. Yet despite the obvious violent impact, not even a single hair on my head had so much as moved throughout the process.

Huh, that was a lot smoother than the A.I had warned about. Some sort of incredibly high-tech inertia dampeners must've been built in.

Taking a deep, I inhaled in the slightly sweet air that this world had and saw that I was in the middle of a crater that my arrival had made. Pulling on and molding my Ki, I used my newfound favorite skill and blasted upwards and out of the crater.

The feeling of air buffeting me put a smile on my face as I soared upward. Learning how to fly had been pretty painful due to Mayze deciding that I'd learn by being thrown off a mountain as many times as needed until I got it down. But damn was it cool.

Coming to a stop a couple hundred feet up, I looked around while fiddling with my scouter. As the partial eye visor booted up I noticed that I didn't see any other landing site where Negi's pod should have landed.

Weird. We should've made planetfall at the same time.

Bringing up the mapping and squad menus on my scouter, I frowned at the info it fed back to me.

I was on the completely wrong side of the planet. Instead of the eastern hemisphere where I was supposed to insert, I was in the west. Not only that, but I was the only one on this side of the world. My scouter pinged that Mayze was where she said she'd be, but all the others were in the east.

Had the navigation data encountered an error? If so, then I was incredibly unlucky, because I'm pretty sure this was the side that held the majority of the cities and military, according to Mayze.

I quickly sent a message out to the others asking if their pods had also malfunctioned. Instead of confirmation, I received a short message.

"Nope. Data was changed on purpose. It's a tradition we do for new members. Have fun! -Selera" My scouter read to my widening eyes as I realized what was going on.

I was getting hazed.

They just threw a 5-year-old into the heaviest defended area of a planet we were invading because they thought it would be a good laugh and that I would have fun. The saiyan race's cheerfully genocidal and morbid sense of humor was about to get me killed on my first mission.

Did Mayze know about this? I couldn't fathom that she did. She seemed to have had the whole mission pre-planned down to a T and had wanted this to be a training opportunity for me. I didn't know exactly how close everyone on this team was, but even if they were good friends I couldn't imagine Mayze would be very happy with them for something like this.

I began forming another message, this one directly for Mayze, to ask for help and what to do next. But before I could send the message I hesitated. Would they do something like this without asking Mayze? If not then that meant she was in on it too and that I was fucked whether I sent a message or not.

If I didn't send one asking her for help at least I wouldn't look weak and unable to handle a low-level planet's forces.

Speaking of this planet's military. Wasn't this the more populated and defended side of the world? Where wer-

A loud snapping sound fired off and the air around me heated up intensely as something smacked into my back with the force of a charging rhino. I felt my back armor creak while trying to dissipate the sudden force put onto it as I rocketed out of the air and made a mini ditch in the ground below me as my body hit it.

'Did I just get shot?' I thought with a mental groan at the sudden pain in my lower back, 'Well that explains where they were.'

I came to a stop some 50 feet away as the momentum forced upon me from the shot bled off. I desperately wanted to check my back to see if there was now a massive hole where I had been shot, but there wasn't much time for that if they already had targeting solutions on me. Charging up my Ki I empowered my muscles and ripped myself out of the ground before blasting back off into the air.

I looked around for what had just shot me. I expected it to be maybe a squadron of air fighters, some tank divisions, or maybe even an infantry squad with some form of MANPADs who had gotten the shot off. But no, instead as I climbed back up into the sky I found myself facing some form of flying machine.

Now that I thought about it, Ruco did mention something about them having mechs.

"You know when I was a human, I didn't think I'd ever wake up a Saiyan who was purging a planet while fighting honest to Kami Gundams." I muttered as I looked into the machine's purple visor.

The thing sported a lot more rounded edges than I was used to seeing on Earth-inspired takes, but that didn't take away from the fact that it was sporting enough weaponry on it to make a Texan blush. I vaguely wondered if there was a pilot inside or if these were drones, but those thoughts were cast aside as the thing pointed a rather large rifle at me and its missile pods began to glow.

My scouter beeped as it scanned the machine in front of me and started compiling its weaponry and energy readings into what would be an equivalent biological power level.

PL: 515

Slightly higher than the planet's average.

There was a deep-rooted fear that spiked in my human psyche at the thought of fighting this thing unarmed, but it was quickly stomped down as my Saiyan blood flooded my body with all sorts of hormones at the thought of battle. The flight option that I had once been accustomed to was instead replaced by one overwhelming urge.

Fight.

"Ragh." I growled as I drenched up every bit of power there was to use with my low P.L. The faintest hints of a clear white aura surged off of my skin.

Absently I saw my own power surge past the 800 mark.

Heh, guess healing after being thrown off a mountain repeatedly had given me a small Zenkai.

Shots rang out as the mecha in front of me opened fire and I moved. My speed at full Ki charge wasn't something I had gotten to use yet, as after I had learned to fly Mayze simply picked me up and flew at her top speed so we could get to the compound that held her team without any delay.

While I definitely wasn't anywhere near as fast as her, I was apparently fast enough to not be locked onto. Because not a single shot or missile came close to me as I flew around in an arc before snapping around and throwing myself into the mech with both arms extended into fists.

I planned to get up close and personal with this thing. From what I could see it was only loaded with medium and long-ranged weaponry. That meant it would have a hard time contending with me up close unless it wanted to detonate any of its missiles and rockets at point-blank range.

Only all my planning was for not as my fists made impact with the metal and it almost shattered like glass.

I jerked in surprise at the sudden destruction as I watched its entire midsection fold in and crumble for the impact. I would've sat there completely stumped had my instincts not already had my hand up with a small energy blast forming. A small wave of energy erupted from my palm and I watched with mute fascination as the mech was turned into pieces of metal and slag before me.

"Well, that was surprisingly easy."I muttered as I watched the remains of my first kill fall down to the planet below.

I didn't know whether it was the saiyan blood or the fact that I didn't know whether it was a drone or not, but no sense of sorrow or guilt erupted like I thought it would.

With a brief moment of respite, I finally reached around to check my back. I could feel the slight cracks that now existed in the armor plating where I had been hit and the area beneath was a little tender to the touch, but that was about it for the extent of my injuries.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. For my level of power at least, these mechs seemed to be kinda glass cannons. As long as I didn't get swarmed, I could definitely do this.

My scouter pinged not a moment later as it counted over 25 new energy levels approaching from due west. Another ping put well over a dozen behind that.

"This is what I get for hoping."

Strike Team 212:

Selera diverted her eyes as her team leader's gaze bore into her. Normally she had no problem matching Mayze's stares whenever she wanted to argue over a decision, but right now if she was being honest, those same eyes were currently scaring the shit out of her.

It was a look that promised nothing but pain.

"I'll ask again. Why. The. Hell. Is my new troop all alone on the half of the planet with the most military presence why you idiots are slacking off over here!?" Mayze growled with her lips pulled back ever so slightly over her gums in a snarl, "I specifically ordered you three to be over there while Negi showed him how things go. So why the fuck am I not currently seeing that being done?"

Oh yeah, she was mad alright.

"We're just doing what we do to all the new members, May." Ruco volunteered to explain with a gulp, "Same thing was done to all of us when we joined the team."

Apparently, the male Saiyan's explanation was subpar, because a vein bulged violently after he was done talking.

"First off don't you "May" me you waste of calories." Mayze snapped as she looked over all of them, "And second, you were all selected from academy's and had power levels of 5,000 and above when you were put on this team. He's from a damn orphanage and isn't even at a 1,000 yet. I've already spent weeks of my own time training him and bringing him up to speed. Considering that you all should be well aware of how much I hate wasting time, I think you can put together how unhappy I'd be if I find him dead because you couldn't follow simple directions. Or how unhappy General Tatr will be if he finds out our squad is once again down on manpower because of it. "

A brief moment of silence reigned amongst the burnt-out building and vehicles they gathered in front of. Until all their scouters simultaneously beeped out as a notification popped up.

Negi offered a grin as he was the first one to open and read it "Well, the good news is that he's still alive. He's even made it into the capital city and is still fighting their military. Not bad right?"

The withering glare he received in response ensured his smile didn't last long.

"Great, that means there's an even larger chance that I'm going to find him dead." The elder saiyan female snorted in response, "Fuck it. I'm going to go save the brat before he gets killed. Meanwhile, you all are going to clear the planet in record time while I'm doing that, or else I'm putting you shits on half rations. Understood?"

True fear permeated the strike group at the threat of their food being cut in half.

"Yes Ma'am!" They all shouted in unison.

With a sigh, the female captain leapt into the air and blasted off towards the west. Fully intent on stopping her newest troop from getting killed from a hazing that wasn't thought out at all in the slightest.

Another bout of silence reigned amongst the strike team as they watched their captain speed off into the distance.

"So…" Ruco spoke up as he broke the silence and glanced between the rest of his team, "Anyone else thinks she's babying him too much?"

"Meh. We all know Mayze has a soft side." Falfa shrugged, "Remember that one planet we sieged a couple of years ago? The one where she sold the population as slaves after they begged her not to destroy their entire race? One of the nicest things I've seen a captain do."

"True." Ruco agreed, "Plus she's about to enter prime mating age. Maybe she's having some maternal instincts kick in for the little guy."

Selera snickered, "Of course, that's what your mind would immediately go to."

Ruco frowned "What about it?"

"Please, you don't think we haven't seen you practically salivating over her Ruc?" Negi joked as he nudged his shoulder, "I'm sure you wanna give her a couple Arlics yourself."

The male saiyan shot a glare at his teammate, "F-fuck off! I ain't salivating over shit." Ruco growled as he got up and blasted off into the sky.

The three saiyans below laughed as they took off into the air after him.

Arlic:

With a flash of speed, I barreled into the side of a skyscraper as missiles chased my tail. Glass and various metals shattered around me while the missiles that had been tracking me slammed into the outer walls of the building. The whole time I was letting out a string of curses as I felt the building's metal cut and gouge into my skin that my shattered battle suit was no longer protecting.

I wasn't nearly strong enough to slam into structures with impunity yet, but as I had learned throughout the day, my flight control was somewhat restricted when I was going at my current max speed. I could dodge the missiles from the mechs without going full speed with no problem. But the ones from dedicated launchers and batteries? I had no choice but to put the pedal to the metal.

Because of that and the difficulty I had with making tight turns, it meant that this skyscraper wasn't the first building I had slammed into today while avoiding fire. And I had to say, every single time had been just as painful.

I finally breached the opposite side of the building and felt the heat from guided munitions explosions reach my back. Had I been any closer, what was left of my back armor probably would have melted off.

From the corner of my vision, I saw the building collapse in on itself, unable to take the strain of a missile barrage and a sub-sonic saiyan gutting its interior.

Taking a deep breath I flipped around and threw a barrage of ki blasts at the missile batteries that had targeted me. Two of the blasts hit their target, cooking off the loaded munitions and having their launchers explode in an array of fiery explosions. Whatever crew that had been manning them vaporized into the dust along with them. The rest of my blasts unfortunately missed and I flew down to avoid the counterfire as the batteries gained a new lock on me.

Fuck I hated being weak. If my power level was even just around 1500, what a normal non-orphaned saiyan's would be around my age, I could've wiped out that entire grid square.

Slamming into the alien street below, my legs buckled slightly from the force and cracked whatever material the road was made of as my arms went to cover my face from the falling debris that suddenly pelted me. Courtesy of the new round of missiles that I had avoided that were now striking the buildings around me.

It was so distracting that I almost missed my scouter beeping in warning and the bright flash of laser rushing towards that signaled new enemies.

Flipping backward despite how much my tired muscles begged me not to, I narrowly avoided a volley of plasma and kinetic rounds that would have torn an untold amount of holes in my body. Down the street, my scouter identified five more mechs that were hauling ass toward me with weapons at the ready.

'Alright, I've already destroyed at least a hundred of these things.' I thought with an exhausted sigh, 'And this was just a fallback planet after their main forces were destroyed during the battle for their capital world if I remember right. There surely can't be much more.'

With another burst of Ki, I launched myself upward into the air. Carefully not going too high up less I make myself a target for their missile launchers again. Dancing around more fire from the incoming mechs and dodging a rail gun shot that was too close for comfort, I formed energy orbs in my hands and launched them at the street below and into the sides of the buildings next to me.

The energy blasts hit their targets and debris shot up and filled the entire street we were on.

A tactic I had learned on accident earlier. Whatever ocular or guidance system these things had couldn't see through thick smoke and debris too well. And while I didn't have any sort of energy sensing yet, my scouter was capable of picking up power levels planet-wide in theory. A little smoke wasn't able to stop it from showing me the locations of the targets right in front of me.

I flew through the smoke and went low. Following the guidance of my scouter let me make quick work of them while the mechs flailed around in confusion, trying to get eyes on me as the smoke obscured the area. My ki-enhanced limbs sheared through metal mid-sections and caved in their heads, with only some of the armor spots offering enough resistance to make me have to use multiple strikes to shatter them.

The fog of debris eventually cleared enough to allow me to see without my scouter and all that was left of the mechanized squad was a crushed metallic limb in my hand and the shattered pieces that had fallen to the street below.

Taking a deep breath to try and regain some of my spent stamina, I threw away the artificial limb I was holding and noticed the bright purple liquid that stained part of my arm. Flaring some of my energy to burn it away, I took it as a small win when I only shivered a little bit as I watched it disappear.

My question earlier of whether these things were drones or not had been answered during the hours I had been fighting these things. Apparently, some were and others weren't. As such, I figured they must have been using drones to compensate for a lack of pilots.

Initially, I had thought that the purple liquid that sometimes spewed forth when I killed these things was just some time of an oil or hydraulic fluid. But when a half-assed ki blast I had hit one of them with burned away only some of the armor and revealed the smoking corpse of a vaguely humanoid alien, I had gotten my answer.

I had wanted to puke, but whatever kind of saiyan super adrenaline that now coursed through my veins instead egged me on. The battle high I had gotten from finally seeing the corpse of an enemy and knowing I was beating living beings instead of just machines had been nearly euphoric. My entire being had lit up with a hunger for more.

All in all, it was a downright strange feeling to be mentally horrified while also feeling as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.

"Tch, it's no wonder most saiyan's are such battle addicts." I muttered, "Who wouldn't be when you're basically getting drug-level dopamine hits every time you fight and kill strong opponents"

Shaking my head, my hand went up to my scouter to try and contact Mayze again so she could bail me out. Even though I had done surprisingly well so far. Hell, I had been expecting to get killed almost instantly once I realized I had been left alone to take on this entire hemisphere. But here I was still alive and kicking.

Saiyans were truly overpowered.

But the tiredness that I could feel sinking into my bones and behind my eyes reminded me it was a performance that I couldn't keep up for much longer. I didn't have the endurance needed to undertake such a massive fight with a low power level as I had. If someone didn't come to bail me out soon, I was going to have to find somewhere to hide and rest. The dense rations that I had on me that were made specifically for saiyans and some sleep would probably get me back up and running, but I didn't really want to rest in a combat area where the entirety of the military force was dedicated to hunting down and killing me.

It was a hard choice to make.

So of course the universe chose at that moment to make the decision for me.

Something hard and heavily slammed down on my back and sent me crashing into the street below. A small crater formed at the impact point and I groaned in pain as my face was buried in alien concrete. I could vaguely tell whatever battle armor I thought I had left was probably gone, considering I felt nothing mitigate the blow that had struck me from behind.

Fighting the urge to just close my eyes and let unconsciousness take me, I slowly flipped myself over and looked for whatever the hell had hit me.

Floating above was a mech that was far more bulky and powerful looking than the previous ones I had fought. It looked like the mass of four of the others combined into one big hulking piece of metal and pain.

And it was staring right down at me.

I was wondering why my scouter hadn't told me it was incoming, but once the device focused on the machine's physical form that was right in front of me and tried calculating its power level, it became pretty clear why when a bunch of error messages proceed to pop up. Some sort of electronic suppression tech must've been stuffed into it.

I lifted a hand and fired off a ki blast at it. The small ball of yellow energy raced forward and smashed into the mech's torso. The mech recoiled from the blast ever so slightly, but otherwise, all the energy shot had done was give it some soot marks on its outer shell.

Missile pods opened up from all sides in response and without hesitation, dozens of munitions rained down upon me. I tried to move and summon my energy as I did earlier to dodge out of the way. But my reserves had been drained. The more I tried to tug on my Ki, the more the heavy feeling behind my eyes threatened to take hold.

The few first that hit left me in agonizing pain as the explosions and heat ripped through my body, but that didn't last long. The pain simply overloaded my nerves once it hit a certain threshold and I assumed shock set in. By the time the last of the missiles hit the only sensations still available to me were the ringing in my ears and the ever-dimming view of the world above me.

'Dying on some backwater world after getting the shit kicked out of me. Yep, being a Saiyan went about just as well as I expected it to go.' I thought as the world grew ever dimmer.

Vaguely I noted the mech above me seemed to lose interest in me as it had turned away and was looking in an entirely different direction.

And then the world shook.

The city skyline above me disappeared in a flash of blinding light and fire. The super mech above was taken with it. The massive debris cloud that followed swallowed the sky and my vision as it raced over. The scouter that was still somehow attached to my face blared out a warning that a nuclear-level blast had just taken place.

'Did the Zentradi just nuke its own city to try and kill me?' I thought dimly as the ash cloud that passed over began burning my eyes, 'I mean I respect the hustle, but damn.'

Then a sonic boom echoed above me and the thick cloud of ash that was blocking out the sky parted. Mayze slammed down into the broken street in a crouch and surveyed the area with her scouter. It beeped as her eyes landed on me with a slightly surprised look.

Which quickly turned into a scoff and a single raised eyebrow.

"Well, I'll be damned. The vitals your scouter gave out said there was a 99% probability that you were already dead." Mayze said while stalking over to me, "Don't get me wrong, you look like a piece of meat that's been left on the fire for way too long and I think there's more blood outside of you than in, but at least you're still breathing."

A sarcastic comment tried to pry its way out of my throat, but all that came out was incoherent gurgles and globs of blood. The world became a bit darker with it.

"You're lucky I have a shot of nanos on me brat. They should hold you together long enough to get you in a healing pod once they're in your bloodstream." She said as she leaned over me.

My scouter beeped weakly and for a split second, a new power level was displayed over the young woman.

PL: 52,000

Oh, so that blast was her.

What the hell?

52K was a stark difference from the 18k I had seen her at previously. That… she was hiding that much power? Why? She could've been mid-class by now.

Most Saiyans never bothered with hiding their power like that. Why bother hiding it when it would just attract stronger challengers which would lead to better fights? Doubly so when it was at a level that could get you promoted to a higher class of society.

That was... odd.

But my curiosity would have to wait until later. My thoughts started fading out by the time I felt a thin prick hit a vein in my neck while my vision had collapsed to that of a thin tunnel. Mayze was about the only thing I could make out.

Despite how much I wanted to still punch this bitch in the face, at that moment as I felt my body shutting down and reflecting on the day I had. She might as well have been the most beautiful angel in the universe.

'A tall, jacked, and brutally bloodthirsty angel.' I mentally chuckled as the world finally faded to total blackness.

Strike Team 212;

"See? I told you the kid would be fine!" Negi said happily as their captain landed with their newest member, "He does look a little crispy though. Good thing this was such a pathetic planet or he'd be dead!"

"Really? I hadn't noticed." Mayze scoffed as she walked past her team and to her landed pod, carrying Arlic by the scruff of his neck, "Status on the planet?"

"The place you obliterated was the last stronghold. We're good to go." Falfa informed.

Mayze nodded, "Good, that means I'll only have to put you fuck ups on half rations for a couple of days."

"What!? Why!? We cleared the planet fast just like you said to do!" Selera protested.

Mayze snorted and sent a glare past the spiked bangs that fell down her forehead, "True, but because of your little stunt, the brat is being held together by a small nano shot." She said while gesturing to the saiyan in her hand, "Which means he'll have to fly in my pod with me in case I have to give him any more. And because the FTL sleep might stop his already weak heart… "

The 4 other Saiyans winced as her growl became damn near demonic.

"I won't be able to use it. Which means I'll have to be awake for the entire journey back." She finished with an angry snarl, "Now shut the fuck up and get in your pods before I decide to start adding to the casualty list."

A frightful silence settled as Mayze's team scrambled to do just that.