Things seemed to change the moment they entered the tunnels. On the ship, as they prepared for the battle, the constant chatter of dozens of different lesser species was impossible for Apara to ignore. The "human" may have been the only one who chose to speak directly to her, but conversation was commonplace. Even if she wasn't part of it she found them all to be exciting, after a lifetime of listening to nothing but the creaking of bugs and the roars of the local beasts on her purge world it was a welcome change to hear of so many different opinions on an upcoming battle.
The anticipation of it was something else. Something...special. Often she never knew when or where her next fight would be, what would emerge from the caves or the skies or the water to end her life. Here she was certain, an army of bugs unlike any she had seen. Dangerous both because of their power, and because of their numbers. Thousands of potential fights to be found in the space of only a few hours. Which was exactly why it bothered he so much to see the mood change so suddenly. Above ground they where conquering warriors moving in for the kill. Below however, the change to quivering and whimpering cowards was so quick she almost didn't notice it. The exchanged jokes from the blue skinned aliens she was being forced to work with quieted into nervous glances and hasty intakes of breath at every flickering shadow or unrecognizable sound.
To think a few dozen miles through some mud and dirt made cowards of them all.
Even their so called leader was afraid. The commanding officer, Jell or whatever stupid name his likely regretful mother came up for him, did a better job of hiding it, but he practically reeked of fear. She could see it in the stiffness of his shoulders, the timbre of his voice as he tried to command them about staying together or trying to keep their attacks united. His voice shook slightly, his experience in this situation seeming only to feed into his fear.
One of the larger aliens jumped back at the slopping sound of mud falling from the ceiling, before he growled.
"This is bullshit. The sooner we wrap this up the sooner we get out of here." He strode forward, pretending to be a real warrior, trying to bluff his way into respect. For a short time it seemed to work, his allies giving him some words of respect and following a little more comfortably, some even returning to their jokes and their occasional hostile look in the direction of the human at her side.
But like any falsehood it fell away easily enough. Only an hour later, as his puffed up chest and stomping footfalls grew just began to grow sure of themselves, they halted altogether. The male freezing like one of the grass eating prey animals of her old home at the sound and sight of the scouters pinging with the rapid approach of several power levels. She grinned, taking a stance as a number of foes approached.
Their eyes couldn't properly adjust to the lack of light, but their scouters were bright enough to illuminate the sharp turn the tunnels seemed to take just a few dozen yards in front of them, and their ears were more than capable enough of picking up on the wet slapping sound of their prey as the creatures trudged, ambled, and practically oozed into view. They had no care for personal space or even the barest hint of breathing room, the approaching force more resembling a moving wall of the disgusting grey and brown flesh loosely and fattily hanging from their bodies than an actual organized force of fighters.
So clustered where they that it was impossible for even the scouters to determine just how many there was, but on her personal feed she saw hundreds of different power levels, the device on her head smoking as it tried to process so many different energies at once in so small a relative area. For a moment even she was surprised. The things were practically on top of them when they finally reacted.
Over the sudden explosion of sound of movement someone yelled. "Kill em' all!" The roar bringing them out of their stupor. She would later note it was Dennis who was the first to act at the command, the man stepping forward and throwing out a barrage of individually, weak, but high volume energy blasts, making up for their lack of power with sheer speed and number. She could tell from the moment he acted that he was holding back, the attacks no where near as strong as her readings of his power-level had revealed.
The sheer amount of them however spoke of a level of power she could not yet match, even when she was going all out, but she ignored the shame that welled in her heart at the sight and watched the aliens she was supposed to consider "allies".
Where the human held back, the others didn't. In tandem their squad lifted their palms, before unleashing energy blasts of their own. She was quick to follow, making sure to mimic the human in joining them, but keeping herself from using too much power, his words echoing in her mind. "Conserve your energy." He had told her.
She understood the ideas merit the moment it was spoken, if she kept the energy she used per fight to a minimum it would mean she could be an active participant in as many battles as she could bring herself to. It meant when a stronger opponent arrived she would be better equipped to fight them herself. It was an idea she had used in the past on her purge world, but it left a bad taste in her mouth to know she was already using such a strategy on enemies that were already stronger than herself. Without the others to help her attacks would be doing close to no damage to these foes.
Perhaps when she reached the not-saiyans level that feeling would become less common. Was it so easy for him to damage them he could hold back as she was and still be the leading attacker?
My first foray into the world of ki had been simple light manipulation, from lighting the way in the darkened halls of my nightmares, to attempting my first real energy blasts, I often found things like light and color came easily to me. It was how I could make my eyes glow, how I planned to fight those who relied too much on sight, and most importantly how I plan on surviving this mission.
The aliens behind me launched their own barrages of energy at the bugs before they realized I was doing nothing more than tossing light at the horde ahead of us, wasting their ki on fodder and giving me a greater chance to close the gap between our power should we come to blows. From the looks I had been getting, and the feelings hiding behind their energy I knew it would come as soon as this battle was over. That was their first and last mistake.
They had already unknowingly established a rule I knew they would abide by. They would wait until they felt safe to attack me. I don't plan on giving them the same courtesy.
I kept up the farce even as the wave of disgusting, muddy creatures squelched their way over to us. My boots quietly lifting into the air as I floated backward and steadily back, eventually falling behind the new crewmembers. My appraising senses feeling as their energy drew lower, panic keeping them from pulling their shots as much as they needed to. Good.
I grinned as my scouter beeped, the numbers dropping off their respective power levels giving me a firmer grasp of their strength in relation to my own. My eyes fell on the back of Jell's head, my grin dropping slightly as the commanders power rose in response to the threat.
"Enough!" He roared, clawing the air in front of him and sending out a pale red wave of power ahead of him, the energy first moving forward slowly, before it sped forward, reducing the cloying wall of flesh in front of us into dust.
When he turned his expression was grim. "Get moving." He growled. My head tilted when I noticed the command seemed to be directed at me. The others were quick to follow it regardless, unwilling to test the steel in his tone. For the moment neither was I.
"The job isn't to waste our time fighting these bugs on their own ground, we find where they breed and burn it, glassing the caves on our way out. " He tapped his scouter, before shaking his head. "We're behind schedule, the other groups are covering more distance than us. Double time!"
He rose into the air, the rest of us following suit as he blasted forward. Behind the hardened exterior of a commander level warrior I detected the innate nervousness of a prey animal trapped in a place it knew was more dangerous than it let on. We ducked and weaved through miles of tunnel, outright ignoring dozens of branching paths as the scouters group mapping system. It was completely inhuman in its design and organization, the paths leading in a dozen different directions, up, down and sideways quickly becoming foreign concepts in the cramped and wet conditions around us.
Occasionally we were met with more resistance, bugs emerging from behind corners and between walls as we pushed forward. I noticed that with every mile we descended under ground, it got somewhat warmer, the manageable temperature of the world above fading away into something of a concentrated heat vent. Instinct and energy told me we were getting close.
As I extended my senses outward I found that many of the other warriors were engaged in combat for nearly every step they took into their respective tunnels, many connected to the same hives, and many weren't. A level of combat we had yet to meet on our own journey. The ease at which we traveled made me nervous, especially with the Saiyan girl so close to me. I had survived worse than this in far worse form, but I didn't have to look out for someone else doing so.
Of course no one else seemed to take the ease with which we were moving seriously. "What do you think Ronus?, was that a hundred or a hundred and one? I must have lost count." A Naldinnian, or whatever the adjective for their species was, gloated as he held a struggling bug into the air, it's humanoid limbs already having been torn from it's body. Their laughter had grown annoyingly loud in the otherwise dead silent tunnels we were wandering in.
It was clear to me by now that the bugs had some means of tracking our movement, but I didn't like the idea of announcing our presence anymore than we already were. I was all but ready to bring it up, potential fight or no, when we finally broke into a chamber even I could easily recognize as one built for reproduction. The enclosed tunnel we had arrived in gave way to a room so massive I couldn't see it's boundaries off the surprisingly piercing light of my scouter alone. The sudden echo of our movements told me it was larger than first glance would suggest.
My senses gave me the only warning I needed. Tens of thousands of individual energy signatures, muted both by the battle and their own efforts, came into focus just below us, stretching out for miles in every direction. The commander reacted just seconds after I flinched upwards, my back colliding with a wet smack against the walls above and behind us.
"High yield attacks! Everything you got!"
The tunnel we emerged from came alive in an instant, practically vacuum sealed with the sudden presence of yet more swarming creatures, a dozen other tunnels just like it sounded with the same wet movement I had long since learned heralded an attack. My palms flickered with heat as I pushed most of my energy into them in an instant.
I launched a lance of fire and flame downward and into a writhing mass of flesh, my own attack lighting the chamber just as much as everyone else's. A world underneath the surface of the one we were invading revealed itself in a mix of heat, bright light, and screaming.
Guess who's back? This Guy!
Power Levels-
Dennis- 256(Currently 168)
Apara- 78
Jell-1358(Currently Unknown)
Naldinnians- 300(On Average)(Currently unknown