My skin burned at the ever present rays of the sun. My lungs burned from the heat of the air. My legs burned with the effort of keeping me upright. I felt like death, but at least that meant my body hadn't given up on me yet. I had never been to another planet before, never seen the stars outside of the occasional glance at the night sky on earth. If I had ever imagined what it would be like, it probably hadn't been this. Still, it did give me an opportunity.
The gravity on this world was as oppressive as its sun, and while no-one had given me any insight on just how it compared to the gravity on the ship, I was certain it would make all the difference when I made it back. The ships own gravity can't have been far off from earth, close enough for me to almost forget about the concept of gravity training in the first place, but here it was with me for every step, forcing me to think about it for no other reason than to distract myself from the pain.
At the very least it gave some weight to an idea of mine. I know that gravity past a certain point was fatal, that it prevented blood-flow and bore down on the body in a way nothing else could. I also know that Goku ignored it, or at the very least didn't know about that fact. It feels safe to assume then, that ki is the difference. Its already clear that it enhances the body, boosting strength, speed, and reflexes to levels far beyond the bodies capability.
I stopped my slow advance, flinching as the sound of a groan met my ears.
I had only been walking for a few minutes before I had begun to pass more corpses and wreckage. Dozens of bodies twisted and charred, arrayed themselves around me. the last vestiges of an already dead people, forced to partake in an extermination just like their own. I felt out the fading life of a Gerresian, looking past a pile of scrap and wiring to see a tangled and burned alien wheezing painfully. I directed my blaster to his head, squeezing out a single shot. I felt a vague sense of quiet relief come off him, before he stilled. I ducked down once I was sure he had passed, tearing the blaster off his arm.
I would need the extra weapon, and he clearly didn't have use for it anymore. I would have attempted to scavenge more, but I knew none of them had been given anything of any real use aside from the already debatable blasters. We were sent here to die, to distract, not to fight, not really. It was a cruel efficiency, nothing more than an apt way to dispose of useless slaves and prisoners.
A kind of cruelty I've noticed is... disturbingly common in this universe. A casual disregard for life that I was adjusting far too easily to.
Of course I wasn't the only one "lucky" enough to make it to the surface relatively intact. My ability to sense ki was relatively fresh, but I could sense those who could survive a bit longer without medical help. Part of me wanted to ignore them, and move on, but my own conscience and a small voice of survival said that there was a strength to be found in numbers.
The first Gerresian I found was trapped under what was left of a dropball. He was struggling to push the hunk of metal and wiring off himself, but between the gravity and the angle he was pinned he couldn't get the leverage to heft it off. He froze at the sound of my approach, struggling to turn his head in my direction. He probably thought I was here to kill him.
"Relax. They sent me here too. I'll help." My voice was dry, and hoarse, but understandable. He relaxed as I stepped into his view. He was an average member of his race, a thin man in a dirty toga, his purple skin darker than i'd seen on a few others. His hair was long and unkempt, and his face had a dusting of dirty facial hair I likely shared with him. He grinned past bloodied teeth.
"I remember you. The 'human' right?" I nodded, crouching down and grabbing hold of the metal sheet he was pinned under. He spoke on with a grunt as we heaved it off. "You can't be as pathetic as they say if you made it through all this." I hummed. I appreciated the compliment, but he had no idea what real strength was.
"I guess not. Come on, we should find some other survivors. We're gonna need more people if we wanna get out of this alive." I looked him in the eye as he managed to stand with an ease I was immediately jealous of. "Do you remember hows strong they said people on this world are? They said it was fifty-eight."
He nodded, his eyes scanning the wreckage around us. "I can't say I'm sure what that means for us, but I know they told me I was twenty-one. We should be careful." I nodded, turning to go after the next ki signature I could track. He called out to me before I could take another step. "Wait!"
"What's your name?" I glanced back, before motioning for him to follow me.
"Dennis."
"You can call me Marriv."
We found five more Gerresians before we decided to move on, the others either being too wounded to fight, dead, or ahead of us. I forced myself to keep up with the casual, yet daunting pace they set. I didn't ask for anymore names, but I got them regardless. Dar'fel, V'hun, N'lam, F'xal, and Shalex.
We kept relatively quiet, mostly out of fear. The rhythmic sound of battle echoed around us, growing louder as the city grew closer, bright green lasers firing from towering circular spires into the massive hull of the ship we arrived on. I tilted my head. I hadn't realized just how closely the ship resembled a flying saucer until now.
It even spun as it moved about, a movement I definitely hadn't noticed while I was aboard.
Nothing came for us as we approached, the defenders far too distracted with the dozens of warriors flying about the city, launching energy blasts into buildings and shrugging off blows that would have turned any of us into bloodied paste. Bodies and craters littered the streets and sand colored buildings, a grim reflection of the carnage above.
When we finally made it into the city we stormed into a very clearly deserted and blown out building at the outskirts, a spire that had likely been destroyed earlier in the day. We had collectively decided that rest and recovery was probably the best choice we could make, and a place like this one was perfect to hide in. Doubly so with the presence of water. The building was all but destroyed, and many of the pipes leading into it were as well, but they still flowed with water, the life giving liquid spraying from several different positions. It was not only the best tasting water I'd ever had, but the broken pipes it sprayed from made alot of noise.
Noise to cover whatever sound we made ourselves.
Still, even as we strived to avoid notice there was something different about this battle we were interested in, something that made us test the tenuous cover our shelter gave us. Something I would have missed if not for my grasp on energy.
I've gotten good at recognizing feelings in the crew, and in the slaves. I knew what fear felt like, I knew excitement, anger, loss, lust, and even defeated acceptance. So it should come as no surprise that I refocused on the Gerresians when I felt something I hadn't recognized before. It was a strange mixture of anger, contentment, and awe.
I understood when the fighting got close enough for me to see fully, and when my energy started to pick out the outliers we had been warned about. We looked out from shattered windows and destroyed walls as flying aliens with yellowed skin met the freeza force in the air at speeds we could barely follow, matching them blow for blow even as soldiers and platforms around the city fired up and into the army of monsters many of the Gerresians thought invincible. Even I was surprised.
Even as the yellow aliens defending this world died by the hundred, others fought on, working with those among them who actually had the strength to fight.I watched as a pink-skinned alien tore the limbs off a defender, only to jerk and collapse as a heavy cannon came to bear, its laser piercing his chest. I felt three energy signatures wink out as an explosion tore through a building. I even felt a grin come to my face as a particularly strong defender actually managed to overpower one of the weaker crew members, bringing him to his knees and ending his life in an instant with a knee to the skull.
On an intellectual level I know the PTO soldiers on our ship weren't anything special, but instinctively I couldn't help but believe our captors came off as demi-gods, regularly doing the impossible. In a way it was beautiful to see they could indeed die. It was also a reminder. Getting to the level of the soldiers doesn't make me safe. Gods, freaks, monsters, and more waited in the shadows between the stars. Things that would make even Freeza pale in fear. I would find a place among them, or die like so many worlds already have.
I ducked as a particularly close battle drew just a little too near, so much so I felt the heat from two energy blasts clashing against one another, their respective owners locked in a struggle of will and ki. I looked at Marriv as the building started to shake, deciding whether or not to run and try to find somewhere else to hide. My blaster made the decision for me.
"Outlier detected, all indispensable personnel are to retreat to rally point and regroup under the command of Captain Jell for new orders. Extreme caution is advised." I stilled, a chill going up my spine in spite of the heat.
The battle we had been observing ended in an instant, the PTO soldier immediately letting go of his energy and flying off before his opponent could react. I felt the ki of hundreds of Freeza force aliens depart in a kind of unity and orderliness I hadn't expected of them, many making sure to leave as quickly as they possibly could. They weren't just aloud to leave though. Those who were too slow to react quickly found themselves outnumbered and overwhelmed. Either blasted with lasers or torn apart by those they had been readily handling just moments before, as the already overwhelming numbers stacked against them increased several fold.
Screams and yells echoed through the streets as the slow, and likely any of our fellow conscripts, were chased down and slaughtered.
It only took a few minutes for the sound of sporadic laser fire and desperate fighting to go almost completely silent, but soon cheers rang out from the streets, a celebration to a victory they certainly hadn't earned. I paled as defenders started to land on top of buildings and on the streets, already starting to gather the wounded and any other supplies they could find.
I stood slowly, making sure to stay out of view of a few aliens as they chanted and cried at the sudden victory. When I spoke my voice came out cold, and far, far more calm than I really was. "Marriv, did you get a chance to look over the building?"
"Y-yes. We made sure there wasn't anyone inside." That wasn't important. I knew that the moment I walked in.
"Are there lower floors?"
We had to hide.