What's Good About Life? (Dragon Ball Z SI Chapter 2)

Nach was a naturally angry Saiyan woman.

At least to anyone who met her.

She hadn't always angry, there was time when she smiled, laughed or had fun in some activity. Or a fight.

Yet, it all soured away over the years.

If she were to sit down and think about it, it all began by meeting him. Dive the Deserter as he came to be known, for those who bothered to remember his story.

Dive was just a weakling really when she first met him. She found a nice furnished home with a lower power level inside, and decided to take it. The young man inside was relatively handsome, so Nach thought: "Meh, I'm in the mood. Let's fight and fuck."

She would win obviously. They both might be Low-Class Saiyans, but there were levels to that, and she had been approaching Mid-Class over the years. A few more and she would fully enter it.

Except, that Saiyan, Dive as she found out his name, didn't give her a fight. He didn't do anything. He literally jumped out the window and...left.

It was fucking hilarious. She never remembered laughing so hard in her life.

But then as she sat in that house she kept thinking about him, and just got annoyed. Why didn't he even...try to fight her? Throw a punch, something.

But no, he relinquish any possession or anything of value he held in this house, just to escape her. It wasn't because she's ugly, she was very sure of that.

His expression before he ran. It just nagged at her. A mix of loathing, resignation and fear. It just pissed her off.

Nach eventually got bored of living alone in that house, so she tracked Dive down, and crash into his new house, telling him she's living with him now.

Again, that loathing, resignation and fear were there. She was excited as he stood his ground this time. She thought he might actually fight her now.

Of his emotions, resignation won however, and so he let her stay. Nach just felt more annoyed at the weakling.

From there living with Nach, she kept pushing him. Wanting to see what makes him tick, wanting to see if what would make him span, even just lash out in some way.

Nothing worked. Dive always kept bottled up his anger, and let her down what she wanted.

The one time she tried to play keep away with his engineering books, that's when he stood up to her.

"If I can't study, I can't do my job, and if I can't do my job, I can't get food. And then I starve and die. Sure, you don't care, but the fun luxury ride ends."

She threw those books back at him, losing interest since he had a point.

At that point, Nach wasn't sure why she always felt angry at Dive, only that she was. It's only in hindsight that she understood.

Dive wasn't some normal weakling without a Saiyan spirit. He had it, but channeled it in learning rather than fighting. It wasn't because he was smart.

She had seen many times where he grew frustrated, angry, or even crying to himself at a concept he couldn't understand. She had seen him trying to use his inner power in different ways, than just energy blasts. It was...actually neat to watch.

Dive did have a passion, a fighting spirit inside him, but he always suppressed it. He never acted on his anger. He was like one of those weaker races that knew when they faced a stronger warrior, and could do nothing but lower their heads and obey, just so they can survive.

Then came the day where King Cold, of the Cold Empire took our planet and race as servants. It was mortifying, but what can they do. They can't win against the likes of Cold.

Kinda like how Dive was with literally any other Saiyan.

That's when she felt it. Rage.

Not in the heat of battle or like when someone insulted her, and she needed to break their teeth in.

She felt rage at herself, at the other Saiyans, and above all at Dive.

Because what? Did their submission to Cold just show that underneath their Saiyan heritage, their pride, they were all just cowards like Dive?

There had been many who rebelled against King Cold, and even wanted to fight him.

King Vegeta put them down like animals. His mighty strength showing why he was the king.

The "lucky" ones who were able to slip past King Vegeta, to reach King Cold couldn't even reach him. His minions made easy work of them.

And so, the Saiyan Race came to serve the Cold Empire.

The strong ruled over the weak as is natural.

When Nach faced Dive afterward, and he saw, saw and understood feelings and realization of their race's new status...

He said nothing. He didn't nod, didn't smirk, didn't show any emotion good or bad, about what he felt about this change, or about her.

Dive just accepted it.

And Nach grew to hate him for it.

She hated how for him, his race's enslavement meant nothing. That for him, it was as if nothing changed.

She hated how he just kept forging on.

Nach hated Dive...because she realized she, at that moment, was just like him. Someone that would bow their head, to not fight those stronger, but just try to scrap by to survive. Some pride did she have.

And then came the day were Bardock, the highest of the Low-Class Warrior, likely soon to reach Mid-Class in a year or two, found Dive's talent in machinery worth recognition.

Nach didn't see it that way. She got some of the ideas ship fixing just from reading Dive's left over notes, and books. In secret of course. Give her a few months, and she would surpass Dive in his oh-so-vaunted possession.

She even went to his workplace with Spin to taunt him. Maybe being forced to go somewhere, were he has to fight would break his "pacifism" in avoiding any fight.

Then...everything went insane. Like cool insane, but also weird insane.

Dive stole a ship. Right in front of her.

Nach couldn't process what happened for a few moment.

Dive stole a ship, and in broad daylight.

The act was so brazen that no one could have reacted in time. Saiyans didn't have deserters. They didn't have weapons to shoot him down. By the time the message got around that the ship was stolen, Dive had already left the planet.

Does Dive even realize that now he's gonna be hunted by them? By the Frieza Force? He'll have a bounty on his head, how the hell does that weakling expect to survive away from her.

Because even if he didn't know, she had protected him. There were other Saiyans that saw him as a meal ticket, that she punched away. Besides, when she beats him up, she lets him heal in full, so he grows stronger. He owed her his cushy life where no one but her approached him.

But above all.

"HAHAHAHA WOOOO!"

It was hearing that laugh the set her on edge. Made her grit her teeth in her sleep.

She had a feeling that Dive was planning something, anticipating something. She thought maybe he knew about someone that can teach energy using technique. Some secret shipment of food. Some mission to a planet where he'll be away from Planet Vegeta thinking he'll escape her.

As if, he has to come back home after all, and she'd be waiting if she wasn't on her own mission.

But no, he elected to run away on his own.

Nach understood then. The reason why she felt like Dive gave off the feeling of a fighter, while being a coward and utterly weak. He was preparing.

All this time he was preparing, and, and, and Bardock must have forced his hand.

So he just pulled that crazy stunt move, and rocketed off away, breaking free from her, the Saiyan Race, the Frieza Force, he just escaped from it all.

Then Nach grew disappointed and angry. All of this, all his inner battles and focus and it was for nothing. The idiot panic. He didn't even realize he left the comms on, letting Spin and her shout at him.

But he ignored them. He didn't say anything back. He just shut off the comms and continued on his way.

Nach didn't care. Dive would be found and then killed. Even if he used his smarts to escape he would still die because he's weak.

The idiot didn't even have time to take out the normal tracker on the ship.

Then mid-way into space, Dive's stolen ship went off the grid.

It must have been destroyed, huh. Thought Nach. She decided to forget about Dive the Deserter and just move on.

What an idiot. If he had put his drive to run away from fighting into growing strong, he would have been worth something. Worth so much more.

But then she heard it on the grapevine months later. Dive turned up at Frieza Planet 369.

He was alive!? How?

His ship lost all trackers and communication.

The latter could be done without a problem if he knew exactly where he was going, and wasn't planning to talk to anyone. The former however, even if you got rid of the pieces inside the ship, you'd still need to remove the antenna and receiver on the ship's back.

Then it occurred to her.

Dive actually went out mid-ship flight to do the modification. The crazy sunnvabitch actually improvised and managed to escape after all.

Now, he now was going to be hunted, but he was a Low-Class Saiyan, so not a priority.

Not for her he wasn't.

Nach felt elated, excited...and angry again.

She remember his screaming laugh when he ran away. She had never heard him make that sound before.

But it wasn't his joyous laugher that pissed her off. But what it meant.

Dive genuinely, had only expressed happiness when he left his planet, his people, his Saiyan heritage behind. A Saiyan being happy that he no longer had to be a Saiyan.

It enraged Nach, and so she went to hunt him down. She was just one Low-Class Warrior, so it was okay for her to head off on her own. She didn't matter, but that didn't bother her.

It turned out Dive was an extremely sneaky little shit. Seriously, so goes to a black market, sells their top-of-the-line Frieza ship for cheap, uses half the money to bribe the dealer not to tell where he was going (which she had to counterbribe by threatening to make him feel unimaginable pain), and then goes to get the most bland model of all ships, that was good enough for one trip.

And then, he goes around making multiple pit-stops before reaching his destination.

Why did he expect someone to go after him? He wasn't important, just doing the token effort to stay hidden would have had him under the radar.

But he went above and behind in hiding himself. He didn't even tell anyone where he was going, or set the coordinates to his real destination, until he's way into his trip away from anybody who might track or follow him.

Did he know she would follow him? Is that way he was so cautious? That asshole!

She kept up her search, till she received a most grave news.

Planet Vegeta had been destroyed by a meteor. The whole of the Saiyan Race had died, due to having been called back by Lord Frieza for some "important" mission.

It was clearly all bullshit. There were way too many coincidences.

There were still Saiyans alive. The Prince-because of course-General Nappa and Bardock's kid, Raditz.

That was it. Nach realized. Three Saiyan males were left and her were left of her race.

Maybe there were others. Maybe some escape like Dive, or some didn't heed Frieza's call in time and didn't make it back.

Then the thought hit her.

She was alive because of Dive.

If she didn't been focused on finding him, she would have surely perished with the rest of her race.

...Something broke in Nach at that realization. A crack formed in her heart.

No! She rejected it. No, that has to be wrong.

Dive was a coward. Dive got lucky. She was a Saiyan Warrior, she could survive anything-

Survive? Not fight?

Since when did she started thinking in that way.

Her Attack Ball was registered within the Frieza Forces. She got a message from Prince Vegeta ordering her return to Frieza Planet 79 to regroup with the remaining Saiyans.

What does she do?

Does she...does she return and work underneath the Prince and Lord Frieza? Just work under the boot of her race's oppressor, and the brat of a prince? She had heard about Prince Vegeta's temperament.

Was...Was she the last female Saiyan? Would...would she be used as some broodmare to repopulate their race? They didn't need to, they had those DNA technologies that could rebuild a race to use, if they really wanted to, and it would be more efficient.

Should she really go along with this?

An insidious thought entered her mind.

She could run away. Do as Dive did and just...escape? Who would stop her?

But she couldn't. She wasn't Dive. She had to be realistic.

Dive was one Saiyan among hundreds of thousands. Who'd miss him?

She?

She was one among four.

She couldn't escape. She would be hunted and found right away.

An incoming message came on her notification.

"Nach, was it? Of course, it's another Low-Class Warrior. You didn't answer the last message, I don't care for your reason. I, Prince Vegeta, order you to head to Frieza Planet 79. Do you comply?" It was obviously not a question.

Her choice was made for her. She answer affirmative and went to the designated point.

That crack in her heart grew, and now it fully became a fracture.

In the end, she was even more of a coward than Dive.