Dragon Ball - Heart of the Adventurers
By LastationLover5000, and Demod20, edited by Firegod00
Chapter 21 - A New Threat
"Star Log...eh...day thirty, I supposed?" The wife of Son Goku drawled out to herself in her rare moment of solitude at the bridge of the refurbished Nameccian craft. "It's been almost a month, but it feels like it's been longer. Doing anything when you don't have a concept of daylight being lost is a bit unnerving. But how have we been these past thirty days?
"Pan has been a good girl, thank god. She's largely been entertained by whatever vids dad helped outfit into the Capsule tech he installed here. And when she isn't doing that, she's training with Kuririn...mentally...so we don't risk wrecking the ship. Overall she's been the best treat to have on our trip.
"Tights, on the other hand, could not be more needy," She paused, rubbing the temples of her head as the machine recorded her groan as she leaned back against the calcified material surrounding the cushion shielding her sensitive back. "I understand she's trying to get some of her writing done, but I can't just spend the whole time looking over her shoulder for typos. Not to mention her rough drafts have eaten away most of the time I've been awake when I'm not navigating. I'd hate to be a novelist with how much work it takes to imagine everything, adding descriptions, characters...I'd rather work on quantum physics than write a best selling book!"
She stopped for a moment, as if something dawned on her.
"That's right! My personal project was put on hold because of this trip! Shit!" The lavender haired mom hissed, leaning forward enough to press her face into her raised hands, supporting her upper body by the bent elbows against the alien craft's control panel. Sputtering out, she dragged her fingers across her brow and cheeks, resting her chin on the metallic instruments as she stared out at the vacancy of space. "Well, that's something to put on the backburner. I'd prefer to have had it at least begun the theoretical phase, but I'll have to wait until after we get back. Let's hope the Nameccians are more hospitable than Piccolo was."
Leaning back, she looked up with arms crossed, her brows knitting down as she almost sneered in memory, "Yeah, hospitable. That's what I've been. And that princess bitch just keeps finding new ways to test my patience! Just because she and Son knew each other when they were young, doesn't mean she should still be acting this petulant years later! We're both adults now, and she should just be over it; what right does she have to ask my husband a favor for saving his life?!
"She should get squat! It was Raditz who saved him in the end!" Stopping short, she fathomed the words she just spoke.
Raditz, the invading alien who destroyed what semblance of peace they had earned, became her husband's biggest reliable ally.
"Since nobody is listening, I guess I'll just say it," Bulma spoke, looking over her shoulder around the seat, making sure nobody was coming out of the Capsule crafted door that led to the hallway full of personal rooms and recreational equipment. Staring ahead, she bit her lip as she looked down at her lap, hands fiddling in interlocked fidgeting. "He's not that bad. He may be rude and rough, but so was Piccolo, I suppose. But he gave his life for my daughter, and the other did his damnest to make sure Vegeta didn't kill my husband. It's kind of sweet, if not a bit ironic, that somebody I wanted dead ended up being someone I'm so indebted to. Maybe I'll thank him when I-"
~Planet Namek Inbound ETA Thirty Minutes!~
Bulma found herself jerked up with a start. The sounds of footsteps and vibrations reaching the bridge quicker than she expected. Slamming her palm hard on the recorder, a whoosh of wind blew her hair up and fluttered her yellow jacket she wore over her protective weave of Capsule Corp make. Looking to her left and right, she'd see she was flanked by nearly all of the ship's crew, sans Jaco and Tights who meandered in far more casually than the others.
"Wow!" Pan pressed her face against the bridge's viewing glass, her reflection showing a smooched grin plastered ear to ear and big eyes blinking widely at the spectacle unfolding before her young eyes. "Ish dat planet Namfek?!"
"Yes, and please don't smudge the glass, sweetie," Bulma gently pulled her daughter back. A second later she'd see Kuririn doing the same right next to her, causing her to gawk with indignation. She wordlessly slapped the back of his head, causing him to rear back with visible pain at the woman's gesture and only got a glare to deter him from protesting.
"A whole other planet," Chi-Chi murmured, making the unofficial captain of the spacecraft to look almost dumbfounded at the hardass princess. Her expression was sincerely wide-eyed with wonder and her mouth open with marvel like a child's. She could scarcely believe it was the same person; till five seconds later she caught Bulma's disbelieving glance and she shot a glare back with an annoyed edge to her voice. "What?! Can't I appreciate another planet for what it is?!"
"It's just a planet," Jaco intoned with his usual snide vernacular voice. Receiving a cuff to the back of his own head, he stumbled a step forward and looked over at a pair of blonde angry brows and blue piercing eyes. "What?! I'm being honest!"
"No one wanted your honesty, Jaco!"
"No, you wanted my ship, and I didn't want it being ruined by your human refuse and stench! But for some reason, you chose to haul me along!" He exclaimed with swinging hands, wildly expressing his emotions with his body more than even his bug-eyed face.
"Because, I need a bodyguard and I think having someone part of the Galactic Patrol could help smooth things over with the locals," She explained matter-of-fact, leaning back with arms crossed over her chest. "See, we have plenty reason for you to be here."
"But that's what you want, not what you need!"
"I think they're the same thing."
"They clearly aren't!"
"Please tell me we're landing soon," Chi-Chi groaned as she rubbed her temples at the noise being made by the arguing pair. "All of this noise is giving me a migraine!"
"Join the club," Bulma snarked under her breath, causing the mountain princess to visibly twitch with rising anger. Rolling her eyes, the pilot of the ship raised her hands, placating the raven haired fighter with a mask of indifference placed over her face to appease her. "It'll be just another twenty minutes. Once we touch down, we'll have the whole range of the world to cover. Thankfully I packed some vehicles in capsule form to make traversing the terrain a bit more doable-"
"Couldn't we just, carry you?" Kuririn asked pointedly with a blank stare.
Sighing, palmed her face and groaned heavily into her palms. While the dwarf only looked to Pan with confusion, the daughter shrugged and simply pat her mother on the back for comfort.
"This is going to be a long trip," She thought as the vessel continued its course for the planet's surface.
True to her word, it didn't take more than a handful of minutes for the Capsule Corp modified ship to land on the rolling hills of the foreign, yet, familiar world. Departing the cramped space of their spacecraft, Pan flew out and hurtled herself over the fields of blue grass of the flat plain they chose to park. As she looked around at the endless vista of trees and lakes that dotted the landscape, Kuririn smiled with relief that nothing seemed out of place in terms of breathable air.
Chi-Chi leaped from one foot to the other, realizing the gravity on this planet was the same on Earth's. She shadow boxed the air, throwing a few kicks in mental image of anyone who'd come to oppose them. She remembered Piccolo Daimao from the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, and if he was just one of many of their kind, she was prepared to throw the gauntlet at any of them if they chose to be hostile. She prepared herself for this journey and she hoped it was enough, because there was only so much training and tools she could bring to help aid her trials that she could potentially face.
The lack of incoming resistance, however, both relieved and troubled her.
"Wouldn't they have noticed our presences by now?" She wondered, while Tights carried a satchel over one shoulder as her sleeveless yellow tank top and pair of blue jeans came hopping out of the ship's ramp with Bulma right behind her.
Pressing a button on the ship right next to the closing platform, the Nameccian ship discharged a big *POOF!* of smoke before it returned to its Capsule form. Picking it up with a kneeling scoop, she placed it in one of the six different Capsule compartments she had stored in the interior of her yellow colored protective jacket. Pulling out the Dragon Ball Radar in her opposite breast pocket, she smiled as the signals began to immediately pick up signatures with successive pings and visible blinks.
"Hey, what do you know," She began to say to the group, gathering their collective attention with earnest. "The radar's picking up some dragon balls not far away."
"Whoa, that's great!" Kuririn declared excitedly, his smile shared with the young child of Goku. "How many?"
"Four, all together," The lavender haired leader of the group stated with relief clearly moved from her body as much as her words. "That's great news. It'll make tracking down the rest a piece of cake."
"Good," Chi-Chi nodded with affirmation, a small smile enigmatically crossed her face as a glint of challenge in her eyes. "The sooner we get those balls, the sooner I can collect on my debt to Son."
"Wish you'd say something about what that entails," Bulma furrowed her brows in the mountain princess' direction. Seeing that she was ignored on that notion, she reached into her coat for a vehicle capsule she knew could house a number of their size.
"Wait," Jaco broke the cheers of the others, his head tilted over to his left skywards. "Are those...Saiyan Pods?"
A chill swept over all of their spines. Chi-Chi, Kuririn and Pan could all tell by a sudden surge of ki in the horizon that something familiar and horrible was coming into the planet's atmosphere. Bulma saw first to confirm what they were feeling; three comet trails of glowing dots that streaked across the skyline down towards the ground.
"T-Those are-"
"-Vegeta! A-And those other two!" Kuririn finished before Pan could, taking several steps back with fear trickling from his lips.
"They feel even stronger than before, too," Chi-Chi announced with fists shaking at her sides. Her eyes wide, her mouth open and sweat beading down her brow much in the same way it did for the other two. Gritting her teeth, she shivered as her face aimed down towards the ground. "Dammit! We didn't get here in time!"
"It gets worse," Bulma announced, her own face paling as she looked at the radar and back at the others. "The four signals are moving!"
"Wait, then that could only mean-!" Tights began to say, only for her to stop short at the dawning realization.
Someone else was already on the planet, collecting the Dragon Balls.
"And where are they going?" Jaco asked pointedly.
"It's hard to say," Bulma peered down at the green colored screen intensely, seeing the dots only move side to side. "It's not getting farther away, but it doesn't look right. It's almost like-"
The instrument then began to ping wildly as the distance measurement decreased the space, slowly expanding the squares to show the metric units that were almost down from kilometers to meters within seconds.
"Mama," Pan began to say, looking to the horizon with sudden trepidation. "We need to hide. Now!"
"Oh god," Bulma uttered, her eyes fixated on the horde of lights that were getting larger by the second.
Faster than she could blink, she felt herself tackled off the ground and drawn into the lake below. A rush of water filled her perception, allowing the group to hide with the others while they struggled to hold their breath. Looking up, they'd see streaks of momentum part the surface, cracking the ground and slicing through anything resembling an obstacle. The sensation of a migraine hit her hard as the ocular implant Scouter she had installed awhile ago was pinging off madly, giving her feedback over her vision in a pop-up HUD. Digits spiked drastically from the thousands onward, with the highest counting to the hundreds of thousands.
As quickly as the horde of signatures had carved a swathe through the planet's air, ground and lakes, they vanished just as quickly.
Hauled upward by a pair of small hands, she felt herself rasp for air, coughing out bits of water that she accidentally choked into her windpipe. Looking over, she smiled thankfully at her child as she shook her scalp free of water, letting it return to its partially spiky shape it usually had.
"This is...ridiculous," Kuririn spoke aloud in between breaths, his body heaving with fear as he wracked his head at what they nearly ran into. "That felt like an army of Vegeta's. And the one at the head...felt like a hundred of him!"
"But, they have the dragon balls!" Pan exclaimed insistently, her body already on her feet and her eyes looking from the dwarf to the princess with shaking fists of her own. "We've gotta go get'em!"
"We'd be slaughtered," Chi-Chi spoke frankly, smiling morosely as she looked at the ground with visible resignation. "Face it. We came all this way and it was all for nothing. We might as well be climbing a mountain with our arms tied to our backs. This is hopeless."
Bulma had a hard time arguing the point. The near seizure she experienced at power levels that brushed across her gaze was numbing her resolve, a daunting reminder of the scale of strength difference between them and this new force. Not only was Vegeta confirmed to be on the planet with his lackeys, but now a new menace to face?
What was the point?
"No, this can't be the end," Tights spoke up, surprising the group as she pointed her hand in the direction the slew of enemies flew towards. "You've all done the impossible before, right? We were always outclassed, and victory always came to us?"
"Who's the we?" Jaco inquired snarkily, crossing his arms and scrunching his lips as he looked up at his blonde partner dubiously. "I better not be included in this 'we'."
"You are in the we, Jaco."
"Why?! I have no business being here!"
"Except the people you were supposed to exterminate are on this planet," She turned to look at him, grinning wryly as he squirmed and leaned back with apprehension at hearing this. "Or have you forgotten your biggest mistake that was covered up?"
"B-But I can't fight them. We're told not to fight them as adults, it'd be suicide!"
"I can always use our ship's communications to contact headquarters. I'd love to get to know your bosses-"
"...you're too cruel," Jaco hung his head, shaking it then swinging his arms with relent. "Fine, you win. I'll help but I'll try not to get into a fight. That is the plan, right?"
"That's right!" Kuririn snapped a finger, looking to Bulma and Pan with a reinvigorated grin. "Remember, the Saiyans use those Scouters to detect life energy. If we keep our ki down to a minimum, we can either get the jump on them or swipe the balls before they can even realize they're gone!"
"Well," Chi-Chi began to rub her chin, placing the other hand on her blue-dress covered hip with a pondering thought shared aloud. "We should be able to keep our presences hidden, for now. Let's creep up on them and take a good look at what we're dealing with. If they happen to get caught with their pants down, I won't argue in rushing them; if they even wear pants, anyways."
"Fashion choices aside, I think this is the best bet," Bulma nodded, thumbing towards the lake behind them. "I'll set us up a base over here, so Tights and I can strategize in the meantime. Jaco can go with you."
"Ohhhhhh I'm going to regret this so much!" The space cop whined, joining the other three in step.
"Alright, Pan," Kuririn cautioned with a half smile at the eager purple haired youth. "Let's keep it down and just leap for now."
"Okay!" She exclaimed with a giggling shout. "Let's go!"
In an instant, the four jumped in a series of streaking bounces, hopping away from the two women's sight in a matter of seconds.
"So," Tights began to say, as the boisterous group of family and companions left. "Did you actually pack an underwater apartment? Cause you pointed at the water like you would."
"Please," Bulma said with smug confidence, pulling out a capsule box from her breast pocket to reveal a slew of building numbers of high caliber profiling on their color coded sections. "I've brought only the best for this space trip."
The Saiyans had finally arrived.
It had only taken them a short time to track down the location of Freeza's Army's dreadnought that their esteemed superior had taken to the planet in question. With knowledge gained that he was openly listening to any frequencies his forces utilized, the trio ensured their own Scouters were muted before take-off. In this manner, they could at least use the instruments' applications without giving away their intent or their location without them releasing their ki deliberately.
The trio had felt their spherical crafts' shake as they penetrated the target world's atmosphere, soon impacting roughly with the blue tinted fields outright. Once settled, the three left their ships and took in stock of the new world. The dull monotony of the landscape did little to enthuse their countenance nor helped them pinpoint visibly any particular sightings of Freeza's Army in question.
In other words, they were off to a terrific start in their quest to overthrow their employer's plans.
"So, what now?" Aspara asked roughly to the sharply glancing prince.
"Now," He began to say, a cruel smile crookedly crossing his face as he spots something heading their way. "We deal with an old acquaintance of ours."
"Who?" Nappa queried, squinting his beady eyes towards the object in particular. Yes, it was in fact a memorable figure in Freeza's Army, but not for endearing reasons. As a swathe of purple snapped out of the air, an ugly creature with holes on its head and antennae for facial features dropped with a soft tap before the three. His amphibious looking lips were smug and his eyes stared challengingly at Vegeta, foremost out of the rest, as he stood confidently before them.
"Hey Vegeta," Cui rasped out, his voice like rusty daggers scraping across a ship's hulls to the Saiyan trio. "Fancy meeting you here."
"Not really," The Prince shrugged with arms crossed over his flexible breastplate. "I figured you'd skulk out of Freeza's shadow at some point. Though, based on your haste, you must have leaped at the first chance to break away from the others. You're probably the stupidest of his lackeys, that's for sure."
"The only one stupid one here is you, Vegeta!" He cackled, jabbing a finger at him, swaying it back and forth from Nappa to Aspara. "Did you think coming here with your own henchmen would even the odds?! Our power levels were exactly the same last time we tangled, and you shouldn't forget; because I made sure you didn't."
"Ohoho! Someone must be remembering wrong, because clearly, I was the one left the victor," The Saiyan Leader replied, smiling toothily in pride at that 'battle' he had with the worm. Closing his eyes, he shook his head, his smile disappearing as he intoned dangerously. "Not that it matters. You're just an ant beneath my boot. Not even worth comparing to anymore."
"What was that?!" The purple fish-lipped man took a step forward, raising a gloved fist angrily at the statement. "You're really full of yourself, you Saiyan whelp! Last time I checked, I wasn't getting my keister kicked in by a runt like Raditz! Oh yes, I heard it all," He added with a grin, his face enamored with a bead of sweat as he knowingly was poking the man for a reaction. "Every part of it of how you lost to a bunch of Earthling scum and a weakling traitor. Don't expect me to kiss your boots when you're having delusions of grandeur. You, and your henchmen, are nothing to me!"
Opening his eyes, Vegeta sighed from his nostrils, looking to Nappa and then Aspara. The man on his right looked visibly enraged, doing all he can to not verbally lash out at the stout, hideous creature for saying those things to the man he helped raise and admire. The woman on his left, however, looked distant from the lashings; seemingly incensed on something said that the others didn't respond to as much she was being triggered by.
"Henchman?" Aspara sneered, her long smooth hair beginning to fray and spike in response to her anger. Lips spread, baring fangs as the whole of her body became colored by a rising swathe of white light, pulsing outward to produce waves of wind that was comparable to that of a storm's gust. The first wave that struck Cui caused his Scouter to bleep in warning, his face paling to a shade of light lavender and his mouth pulled back at the an oblong shape of horror.
"T-This can't be!" He lurched backwards, cowering with hands raised as Aspara began to take slow steps towards him. "T-Twenty Thousand?! But you're just a henchma-"
"Three times, you've said that," She cut him off, her eyes nearly erased by the whites of enraged glows coming from her sockets. "I'm a Saiyan Elite, and you've got the gall to talk down to me, you worthless worm!"
"Wait! H-Hold on a second," Cui raised his hands with horrified insistence. "I just remembered something! I can help you against Freez-ULK!"
Ignoring his pleas, Aspara surged forward in a speed the hopeless alien couldn't comprehend. His chest cavity was opened with a single knife-hand thrust into his midcenter, shooting out of his back in violet colored blood. As he coughed out, he'd suddenly feel a white hot pain replace his throbbing one; following a guttural shriek as he was slashed in two. Done by a bright, colorless stroke of Aspara's arm, cutting the hillside they were walking upon in half, and into the lake behind him.
"You feel better?" Vegeta asked coyly, causing the Saiyaness to glare over her shoulder at him.
"It'll do, for now," She shook her hand free of the slaughtered alien's blood, leaving his two halves to bleed out where he was dropped. "Though I imagined it was someone else when I did it."
"Whatever helps," The Prince chuckled darkly.
"So, where to?" Nappa asked, hoping to break the unnerving tension cast between the two.
"First things first," Vegeta turned his head, closing his eyes as he focused on something beyond his ordinary senses. When he felt a distinct ping, followed by several smaller clings afterwards, he reopened his eyes with a savage grin armed on his face. "Found them!"
"Oh! You can sense ki now?!" Nappa exclaimed with surprise.
"After watching Kakarrot fight, it only took me awhile to comprehend the skill he was using. It's child's play once you know how to use it," He explained with a satisfied grin.
"That's amazing! We have a huge advantage now, don't we?!"
"Indeed," He nodded in agreement. "As long as we can keep ourselves out of our dear boss' gaze, we can pick apart his forces until we spread his focus too thin. After that, we can snatch the balls for ourselves and he'll be powerless to stop us!"
"Then let's get a move on," Aspara intoned lowly, her eyes glint with murderous intent as her face ebbed a visible snarl. "I'm nowhere near done killing these jackasses yet."
"Patience, Aspara," Vegeta chided with a wry smile. "You'll get more fools to slaughter. Of that, I can promise you."
Running across Namek was proving to be a chore in and of itself. While someone such as Jaco was used to running for locomotion, Kuririn and even Pan had gotten used to not only flight, but letting their ki run free. Restraining it to such minimal levels, and being forced to scramble across the surface of a planet where everything admittedly looked identical was far less than ideal.
And of course, Chi-Chi was as pleasant as she ever was. She could sense where they were headed; their targets were exuding ki without any regard for stealth, almost as if they had no idea they could be followed. Or simply didn't care.
The latter of the most frightening, considered the woman darkly. Regardless, she wasn't pleased to be in present company. A random alien who did not know when to be silent. A rambunctious toddler who was a constant reminder that Son had chosen someone else. And Son's closest friend, of whom she neither knew nor cared anything for. Certainly, she was in great company now. Regardless, she thought as the group made a wide leap over a sparkling section of green ocean — or perhaps it was a large river connected to the massive sea? — and landed neatly onto the next stretch of land, continuing at their brisk pace, the sooner we wrap things up, the sooner I can collect on Son's debt to me...and then I can distance myself from this lot entirely.
As Chi-Chi was lost in a silent, but bitter reverie, Pan's tail wiggled enthusiastically. Her eyes, vibrant despite their black sheen, were taking in the bulk of Namek's scenery the way a starving man would devour his first meal in months. "I didn't think that Mr. Piccolo's planet would look like this...!" She said, astonishment still in her voice. "Everything is so clean...the water and grass...it reminds me of where Mr. Piccolo took me to train with Uncle Raditz!"
"You think so, do you?" replied Kuririn. "I suppose the guy would naturally latch onto anything that felt like 'home'. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that not only is Gokū an alien, but so is Piccolo, and meanwhile Bulma has been friends with one for years!"
The word "friends" was repeated under Jaco's breath with extreme resentment, but Kuririn and Chi-Chi were learning to pay him little mind, and Pan was too absorbed in the planet to care.
"I wonder if everyone here is like Mr. Piccolo!" Pan was beside herself with expectations towards the host species of the planet.
"...I would hope that all of them are as little like Piccolo as possible," replied Kuririn, remembering clearly the actions of both Piccolo and his father, Piccolo Daimaō. "Though, these Saiyans make Piccolo look like the boy next door...hopefully the saying 'the enemy of the enemy is my friend' exists here too..."
"You're soft," replied Chi-Chi icily. "Didn't you train with the Kame-Sennin? Don't you have more backbone than that?"
"It isn't about having backbone!" Kuririn replied. "I don't think any of us can fend off an entire planet of people like Piccolo! One of him was bad enough."
The ebony-haired martial artist huffed. She recalled Piccolo and Son's battle at the Tenkaichi Budōkai; the ferocity and might both had displayed had completely destroyed the arena and nearly killed everyone involved. If even half of the Nameccians were as strong as Piccolo, and turned on them, she had to admit, they wouldn't make it back to Earth. Chi-Chi didn't have too much time left to process her thoughts, however, Kuririn cutting across them like knife through butter.
"We're getting close; let's suppress our ki completely, everyone! We'll switch to walking!"
Pan and Chi-Chi followed Kuririn's instructions, and the foursome switch to a walking pace. They gradually reached a cliff, a convenient perch for overlooking their quarry. Crawling on the ground, Chi-Chi, Kuririn, Pan, and Jaco poked their heads over the edge of the cliff as best they could, taking in a scene that chilled them entirely.
In their sights was a Nameccian village; houses, identical in make and resembling the shop they took to get here, had been orderly built by the people of the planet. At the edge of the villain was a garden — whether it grew food or not wasn't clear — and there were what appeared to be recreational spots in the centre of the village. Yet, what should have been a peaceful scene was marred by the fact that individuals wearing what the group considered to be "Saiyan Armor" stood confidently in front of a group of people who had to be Nameccians — their resemblance to Piccolo was undeniable.
"T-There it is..." Jaco's teeth chattered as he tried to keep his voice low. "They're members of Freeza's army, all of them!"
"Keep your voice down an' be quiet!" Chi-Chi hissed. "You can't control your combat strength, Bako! Your movements could give us away with those devices o' theirs!"
"This is ridiculous..." Kuririn muttered. "I'm sensing incredible ki down there..." He kept his eyes on the group at large, picking out what looked like rank-and-file soldiers of the army, who were busy extorting what he could only call an older, larger version of the God on their planet. "That lot isn't too impressive...but the four in the middle are going to be trouble. Especially the man in that weird round pod...his ki is ludicrous!"
Four people standing amidst the rest of the army. These individuals would be enough to strike fear in the hearts of the bravest warrior. One was small, lizardlike, and rested in a floating black vehicle with gold white inlay. The figure had a large purple cranium, two horns jutting out of the side of their head, with small, beady-red eyes. His face and arms are a bright pink, though his forearms were covered in what appeared to be white plating, and he was wearing the same armor as the rest of the Freeza Army. A thick, pink tail lay off the side of the craft.
Flanking him on either side were two figures that contrasted each other so perfectly, they may have been chosen simply for their aesthetic. One was a man of handsome countenance, who could have been a prince in any other scenario. His skin was pale green, and he had long, dark green hair worn in a plait that reached his back. The other was a rotund figure, far less beautiful than their contemporary — though who was to judge alien perceptions of beauty? — with pink skin, a spiked cranium, with their arms matching the appearance of their head in a most perturbing way. If the green-skinned man could be a prince, this individual was almost certainly an ogre. Both individuals wore the armor of the Freeza Army, and each had a blue Scouter on their face.
Taking up the rear was a man with an olive complexion, wearing the same uniform as the rest of the Freeza Army, however, his chestplate, shoulder pauldrons, armbands, and boots were all a dark navy in hue, and he wore a bright red scouter. He possessed a shock of dark black hair in a shape familiar to Kuririn, Pan, and Chi-Chi in a heartbeat, and he had a furred monkey tail that he wore loosely around his waist.
Pan's attention was focused solely on this one man, and a single word escaped her mouth at a volume far too loud for the continued safety of the group.
"Pa...pa?"
A/N:
Demod20: I apologize, firstly and foremost, for this chapter being later than it was necessary. While some delays were expected after our spree of updates last year, with our personal lives and other stories needing updates, I was partly to blame for it coming out in late June we'll definitely try to release the next chapter in an expected pace you're all familiar with. With that out of the way, I had fun writing this Chapter. It's something like this that hearkens back to what Bulma dreamed about from Chapter 2 of this story; journeying into the stars and exploring new worlds, species and discovering things for the first time where no Earthling has ever dared to traverse. Little things like Chi-Chi's wide-eyed wonder for a new alien world, Pan's adorable mannerisms and quick instincts, Jaco being Jaco, Tights being the voice of optimism and spirit, along with Kuririn just being the every-man trying to keep the peace. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed writing Vegeta in this manner. Him feeling completely in control thanks to the fact he still has two strong henchies, and Aspara just hates being labeled as such by someone as pathetic as Cui. I'll enjoy writing for these three in the definite future!
LastationLover5000: So, my contributions were minimal this time, but heya everyone! So glad we finally got an update out after six months, and I'm sorry about that as well. Demod did a kickass job on his contributions this time; it was fantastic set-up for this chapter, and I loved it. I was able to get my bits in the tailend of it, and as you can see, we're getting down to the nittygritty already! Without further ado (though it started earlier) I can firmly welcome you all to the Namek Arc of the Heart of Adventurers! You've seen some familiar faces on my end, but who is the mystery Saiyan in a blue combat jacket that looks like Gokū?! You'll find out in the next chapter, when we start off strong next month! See you all then!