Going Native: Eyes Wide Open (Patreon)

A hand grabbed me by the hair, yanking my head back before a heavy fist crashed against my nose, flattening it with a spray of blood. The fist came down again against my jaw, jerking my head to the side, blood filling my mouth that leaked out when the fist came down again. And again. And again. 

“Ughk,” I groaned, lashing out with a foot, catching a solid wall of muscle in front of me. Distantly, I heard a scoff before that same fist slammed into my stomach hard enough I vomited. My opponent didn’t care, having long since gotten used to being covered in fluids of the enemy, instead he heaved me up by my hair before slamming me down hard enough I made a crater in the dusty red stone. 

Another groan escaped me, blood and vomit leaking out of my mouth as I rolled to my side. Everything felt broken, my body was a giant bruise and only sheer will kept me from blacking out. I turned so I laid on my stomach, trying to push myself up, only to get stomped on hard enough that I felt every single rib creak. 

“Ughhhh…” I groaned again, unable to form words with my broken jaw. I spat up more blood, this time I saw a tooth in the mix. At least they would be replaced when I hit my growth spurt. Again, I tried to push myself up despite the extra weight, only for my opponent to lean on me, digging his heel into my kidneys. I would be pissing blood later. 

“Are you done?” Came a muffled voice from above me. Again, I tried to push myself up, my arms trembling with exertion but any strength that they had was gone. 

“Guh…! N-...no!” I moaned, my arms giving out as I went limp. Red sand coated my face, sticking to it because of the blood and sweat. I must have breathed plenty of it in because my throat felt like it was lined with it, just another ache amongst many. 

“Yeah, you’re done.” Bardock disagreed, grabbing me by the tail as he hoisted me up. Blood dribbled from my lips, my arms and legs swaying with every step. Weakly, I tried looking up -- my right eye was swollen shut completely, but I could still see through my left for now. 

Again, I found myself in the ruined center of a city. Buildings were little more than rubble, fires still raged filling a bubblegum pink sky with smoke. Not too far away I saw half of a massive spaceship jutting out of the ground where it crash landed. I’m sure that the other half was somewhere. 

I could still see the remains of pointless defenses in the streets, bodies laying around them where the soldiers had died. Craters littered the city where bunkers once were for those that hadn’t been evacuated. I was almost thankful for my broken nose because it meant I didn’t have to smell the death in the air, a stench that I never managed to get used to. 

Where we were now was once a city park, if I had to guess. There was no grass, only sand and stone, but there was a broken fountain in the center of it and there were no buildings nearby. Well, not counting the ones that fell over into the park. 

“Hnngh…” I groaned when Bardock started walking up the steps to the ship. Leek proved his worth as a pilot. The outside of the ship took a beating, scuff and scorch marks peppering the exterior, but the interior was fine. Memories of a sky filled with lights, so many that it almost looked like it was day filled my mind. It was hard to imagine that you could avoid getting shot out of the sky, but somehow Leek managed it. 

“Tuckered out again?” Fasha observed, relaxing at the entrance of the ship. She had a few cards in hand, Borgos sitting on the other side of the ramp with a few more. A card game that the saiyan race stole ages ago to help pass the time between missions. 

“He really needs to learn his limits,” Bardock grumbled. I’m pretty sure he thought I was unconscious. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure that I wasn’t. With him grabbing my tail, everything kinda went numb, so if I wasn’t already unconscious then I was about to be. “He just won’t stay down. It’s irritating as all hell.”

Fasha chuckled as Bardock entered the ship, tossing a card at Borgos, who caught it, shook his head, then threw it back. “And now you know how the rest of us feel about you half the time,” she ribbed him goodnaturedly, catching a card that Borgos tossed at her, grimacing, then taking two cards from her hand and threw them back. 

“Yeah, yeah, I get enough of that from Gine. Don’t need it from my team too,” Bardock said with a scowl in his voice. “And at least I’m smart about it. He just throws himself at me.”

Fasha sent him a Look, capital letter. “Of course he does. It’s what you taught him.” She observed and if my jaw wasn’t broken, my lips weren’t swollen and split, or my entire face was blissfully numb, I would have frowned at that. Bardock hadn’t taught me a single thing so far. 

“I taught him?” Bardock sputtered, gesturing with me in hand. A pain-filled groan escaped me as I bounced in his grip. 

“Hate...you…” I rasped too lowly for them to hear. 

“Back when he was training with saibamen, you let him throw himself at the enemy until he ended up like that every day. You didn’t stop it, so that’s what he learned. And it’s worked out so far for him,” she added with a shrug, gesturing to me. 

Bardock just grunted, lifting me up until I was eye level with him. Weakly, I cranked my head back to look at him, starting an impromptu staring contest. Wait- this was my chance! I struggled to summon upon my ki, only managing it since I built up a tolerance to getting my tail pulled. “S-solar Fl-flare!”

A weak light shone out of my body instead of the blinding light that I had been counting on. I don’t think Bardock so much as blinked to protect his eyes. He continued to stare at me for a moment, thoroughly unimpressed. Then I limply threw a punch at his face, it impacted with a light smack but that was it. Bardock just narrowed his eyes into a glare. 

“I didn’t give up...asshole,” I gargled, blood pouring out of my mouth like a broken faucet. I think I might have bitten my tongue at some point. 

“See? He learned that if he bashed his head against something long enough that it would give way before that thick skull of his does.” Fasha pointed out, picking a card and launching it at Borgos. 

Bardock just sighed, marching into the ship, Fasha calling after him. “You might want to fix that before he finds something harder than his head!” He didn’t respond, but irritation rolled off him in waves. With well-practiced ease, he brought me to my healing pod before tossing me into it, the healing fluid starting to work it’s magic. 

I sighed in relief, wrapping the mask around my face as I breathed in deep. The air on this planet was a lot thinner than normal. Not enough to pose any issues, but it took some getting used to. My ribs ached with each breath, still, I chose the pain over not breathing at all. 

Opening my eyes, I saw Bardock walking away. The fight hadn’t always been a one sided beatdown like it had towards the end. I got in more than my fair share of licks in -- Bardock’s armor was cracked and busted, blood seeped from the wounds I gave him as cuts and scrapes littered his body. Apparently, it wasn’t enough to get in a healing pod in favor of going off to do whatever he had been doing for the past couple of weeks we were stationed here. With nothing else to do since the planet had been conquered, I closed my eyes and slipped into myself like I did countless times before. 

It had been a week since we conquered this planet, Scarlot, I think. They...just kinda blurred together at some point. This one was Scarlot, the one before was Oat, then the one before that was definitely planet Leef. I remember that one because of bug monsters. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of bug monsters. Stepping on that planet was like stepping on an anthill. Before Leef was…

My eyes flicked open, the swelling on my right vanishing to nothing even if the cut still remained. For a long minute, I sat in the healing pod, doing my best to think about nothing. However, as they always did, my thoughts strayed to the things I didn’t want to think about. Those things I always found myself thinking about when I was left alone, stuck in this healing pod when I pushed myself too far for too long. 

Four years. I’ve been at war for four years. It really didn’t feel like it sometimes. The days, battles and planets blurred together until they became one great big long fight. There were times it felt like I blinked my eyes once and here I was, just over seven years old. Other times...like now, when I was left alone with my thoughts, those four years seemed to have lasted an eternity. 

I breathed in deep, noting that the pain in my ribs was gone. My gaze found my hands, some of my fingers a little crooked, heavily calloused on my palms and knuckles, with a deep tan on them instead of the pasty white I was before. 

I must have drifted off at some point because when I opened my eyes the room was dark. Glancing at the monitor, I saw that my body was more or less healed so I hit the drain button. Stepping out of the pod, I shook off my any excess healing fluid as I peeled away my armor and undersuit. Tossing them aside, I grabbed a black sleeveless unitard looking one, my usual armor with black boots. Mostly because those were the only ones left available. Between seven saiyans and bouncing between battlefields, I guess it was only expected that we would burn through our supply of clean clothes. 

Leaving the medical room, I walked by a yellow-tinted window and saw the familiar backdrop of space. We must have left the planet at some point. Brushing excess droplets out of my hair, I started to look for the others to find out where we were heading. 

Naturally, the first place I went to was the cafeteria, finding two members of the squad playing a card game, countless plates stacked up between them so they must have just finished snacking. Tora noticed me first, Borgos glancing over his shoulder before returning his attention to the game. 

“Tarble,” he greeted, checking his hand before frowning at the move Borgos made. 

“Where are we headed?” I asked, walking over to a freezer, opening it up to reveal that it was absolutely stuffed with food. Saiyans could eat pretty much anything, so one of the most common things looted from alien planets tended to be food since resupplies were...nonexistent. We were just sent from planet to planet, leaving almost as soon as we conquered them, they only communications we had with the Frieza-force were our next orders. 

“Planet D’xe. Last stop before planet Sereall,” Tora answered, getting a nod from me as I prepared my meal. A mountain of food was shoved into what looked like a blast furnace, heat washing over it to rapidly cook it. “I’ve made a bet with Shugesh that this one is going to have scarabs, you want in?”

I shook my head, watching my meal turn on a plate, almost like a microwave. “Suckers bet,” I declined. Each world was slowly ramping their defenses the closer we got to the shield worlds. Space defense platforms, larger garrison fleets, and, most importantly, scarabs. Early on in the campaign, there were only a scant few sprinkled about. Now, there seemed to be a dozen on every world. Though, not as many as we expected. 

Tora thought that the Reach was bluffing on how many they could make. I suspected that they were on other fronts. Our team has conquered over a dozen planets, but we were just one small front. There hundreds of teams just like us, all along the Reach border to slowly inch our way towards the shield worlds. 

“Yeah, but that’s Shugesh. Can’t stop himself,” Tora said with no small amount of amusement. 

“How far out are we?” I asked, opening the oven, grabbing the scorching hot plate with a hand before bringing my meal to the table. At the opposite end of them. That way I would have a little warning when they tried to take something from my plate. 

“A couple of hours. I was about to go wake you up. Again,” Tora said, picking a card, frowning at it for a split second, before choosing another card to play. Borgos countered instantly, earning an irritated sigh from Tora as he tossed his cards onto the table. Borgos chuckled, taking his winnings and eating them in short order. 

“Have we gone dark yet?” I asked, the mountain of food more of a small hill as it rapidly disappeared into my stomach. 

“Hm. We’re just outside the system now, so we’re waiting to get in closer before we base jump to the planet.” Tora explained, grabbing his drink and draining whatever was left in it with one gulp. 

I nodded, having gotten used to the tactic that we were forced to use more and more often. They figured out how to pick up on our attack balls, the same way they picked up on our ships and FTL use. If they weren’t jamming it outright. We found that out when we were greeted by a wall of fire as soon as we entered range. So, we were forced to adapt. 

I finished off my plate, grabbing it and bringing it to an overstuffed sink. After spending a minute trying to find a place where it wouldn’t fall over, I just set it off to the side to start another pile. With that, I left the cafeteria as Tora and Borgos started a new game. If I only had a few hours before the next mission, then I might as well make sure I was ready for it. 

I circled the ship, making my way to the dock, where we would be departing. My mask hung up on a rack with the others, some wear and tear marking its white surface, but the seals were still good. As was the hose, and the tank was topped up with air. My equipment was all good, and that took all of five minutes...so…

I sat down at the dock and waited. Bardock was the first to come down, sending me a look as he leaned against the wall across from me. I could feel his gaze on me as I waited for the mission to begin. I looked over at him, making him sigh. What was his problem?

“Are you just going to waste time down here? Why not do something productive?” Bardock questioned, earning a frown from me. I made a face -- where was this coming from? 

“We can’t fight on the ship,” I answered, giving him an odd look. Way too risky that one of us forget where we were and overdo it, destroying the ship and getting us all killed in the process. 

“No we can’t,” Bardock started, sounding like he was annoyed. For what reason, I couldn’t begin to guess. “You could do something else, though. All you do is sleep when we’re not out.”

Seriously, where was this coming from? “...What else is there to do?” I muttered defensively, frowning at him. 

Bardock looked away, tsking to himself as he crossed his arms. “I’m not your patron, figure it out yourself. Just do something other than sleep and twiddling your thumbs.” 

“...Did Fasha day something to you?” I hazarded a guess, earning an annoyed grimace from him in response. Now it suddenly made a lot more sense. “I’m fine.” I clarified simply, hoping that would be the end of it. I didn’t need anyone telling me how to spend my free time between missions. So what if I slept for days or waited patiently for the next mission? I wasn’t hurting anyone so what did it matter? 

Judging from Bardock’s expression, it wasn’t the end of it. “It’s not fine. You’re wasting your time.” He refuted, opening his mouth to continue but the sound of footsteps stopped him. He sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat, “we’ll finish this later.” He promised as the others came down. 

I wasn’t looking forward to that, I thought with a grimace of my own, though thankful for the interruption. With any luck, he would forget all about this conversation over the next few weeks. Because we were about to get busy. 

A light flashed as Leek’s voice spoke through our scouters. “Docking bay is about to be depressurized. Put your masks on.” With mine at the ready, it slid onto my face easily. I double-checked the seal, just in case, and found it was perfectly contoured to my features. The others did the same, Bardock giving the all good before air began to get sucked out of the docking bay. 

A minute later, the docking bay cracked open, revealing a sea-green planet in the distance. Some chunks of rubble of its moon still remained, but it looked like they had long since cleaned up the remains. Instead, I saw a defense platform orbiting it -- the Reach seemed to have taken the scarab design and ran with it. At the low angle we approached, coming from the southern pole, I saw that it was in the shape of a beetle. 

The back was bulbous, the source of its energy and probably some kind of hangar. Arms branched out of the thorax, fanning out so each could fire without interference while the head took the form of a plasma weapon, the mandibles serving as a barrel. That was proven when it launched a bright blue ball of plasma at a saucer disk, thousand miles away. 

A battle raged in space, a fleet of our ships battling against a sizable enemy fleet. There was a dozen of our ships for everyone one of the Reach, swarming over their defensive positions around the superweapon that fired another shot. It missed, but the intense heat destroyed a dozen ships by proximity, overwhelming the shields and hull. 

It was a mess of flashing lights and explosions, but, so far away, it looked so controlled as well. The Reach ships never strayed from their defensive formation, all of them bigger than the saucers that peppered their shields. I didn’t know enough about space battles to say who was winning, but it looked like they were killing a lot more of us than we were them. 

Though, judging from the flashes of light visible on the planet, the defense fleet hadn’t managed to stop a Frieza-force army from landing. 

“Tarble, Borgos, you take out the superweapon. The rest of us will deal with the fleet.” Bardock ordered before we drifted out of the docking bay. “Leek, get yourself in there.”

We soared forward at a subdued pace, careful not to be picked up on any motion detectors. With well-practiced ease, I only took deep breaths, holding them for about two minutes before slowly exhaling, perfect for making the hour of air that I had last for much longer. We flew in silence, all of us conserving precious air before Bardock gave the signal for me and Borgos to break off. 

The two of us sailed towards the defense superweapon, it rapidly grew in size as we neared. I saw a light blue shimmering light surround it, almost like a bubble. An energy shield. I looked over at Borgos, getting a nod in return. Shields weren’t just good for keeping ki blasts and missiles out, but alerting the planet when anything got in. 

Taking one last deep breath, both of us plunged through the shield. I saw the superweapon light up, going on full alert. Along its thorax, hundreds of doors slid open to release countless drones. They looked different than the ones on Rockoroad. Slimmer, the wings had changed. A light blue bubble around the drones told me that they had shields as well. Probably not strong ones, but if it meant they could take another hit...

I cupped my hands to my side, drawing upon my inner energy, blue light piercing the intense darkness of space. “Kamehameha!” I yelled, a flash of blue light carving a line towards the weapon, rapidly closing the distance. My attack slammed into the side of the ship where the drones started coming from, the sleek metal giving way like tissue paper. Explosions wracked the surface as my attack punched through thick armor into the parts that weren’t meant to be exposed to the vacuum of space. 

Next to me, Borgos peppered the drones with rapid-fire ki blasts, destroying the bulk of them long before they could hope to reach us. Before long, my Kamehameha punched through the other side, when it did, I cut off the attack to form another. 

“Kamehameha!” I yelled again, this time aiming for the end of the ship, hoping to hit something important. Another second later, the back began to bulge outwards before popping, almost like a balloon. My eyes narrowed as everything went white, recognizing the explosion as a plasma one. I must have hit the munitions storage. Lucky. 

Immediately, Borgos and I started to fall back, the first domino having been tipped over so it was only a matter of time before it all blew apart. As we did, ki blasts flew from my hands, peppering the remaining drones until they blew up. Unfortunately, the Reach learned as the war progressed, so they stopped going inactive as soon as the mothership was taken out. Now the drones just followed their last order with suicidal efficiency. 

“Superweapon is down. Heading planetside now.” I informed, shifting my flight down. 

“Save some for the rest of us,” Bardock responded as we entered the atmosphere. Glancing over, I saw flashes of light as they laid waste to the fleet. I couldn’t pay too much attention because the ground forces started unloading everything they had in our direction. Countless plasma blast raced towards us, aiming in our general direction but wide enough that it was impossible for them to miss. 

Borgos reacted instantly, cupping his hands in front of him, white light leaking between his fingers. Tossing the ball of light forward, the ball hanging there as we descended, he looked at it the same moment I looked away. The large saiyan began to grow, his arms growing hairy as his skin was coated with fur. Most oozaru were around a hundred feet tall, Borgos was closer to a hundred and thirty. 

Like so many times before, I watched one of my squadmates fall to the ground, the enemy focusing fire on the larger target. Borgos roared, slamming into the ground like a meteor, a large bloom of dust going up that left him obscured for a moment in the middle of what looked like a military base. Then it was all cleared away when he let out a ki blast from his mouth that carved an arc of destruction through the base. 

Keeping the Power Ball behind me, the technique that made it possible for us to conquer these worlds, I flew down at a much more subdued pace. Plasma blasts slammed into Borgos at all angles, but the unified front was gone and Borgos was simply too powerful to be hurt from attacks like that now. 

My eyes searched for larger weapons aimed to cut off his tail as he wrecked the military base with attacks that shook the planet. There was no logic to it, only reacting to things that attacked him and killing them with overwhelming force. Borgos would leave the area only when everything was dead, or something drew his attention away. 

Spotting one, I fired a ki blast that slammed into one of the mounted guns back on Rockoroad. It hit dead on, exploding and killing the crew. From up above, I could see the military scrambling, this race of aliens almost looking like saiyans, only their skin various shades of red. It was really weird just how many aliens species looked alike, it was like one design got copied and pasted throughout the galaxy. 

I fired again, destroying another mounted weapon. Then again, and again and again. Some aliens noticed me, firing the occasional stray shot at me, only to be destroyed in return. No sign of any scarabs. Yet. 

Letting out a breath, I grabbed my mask and pulled it off my face, takin- no, no no, bad idea. I gagged, quickly putting the mask back on. Okay, clearing a landing zone for Leek just became priority number one. The air here reeked like rotten eggs, my lungs burned from the small breath I took, I could practically taste it. So, odds were it was poisonous as well. Checking my tank, I still had about fifty minutes of air left. Closer to two hours if I was smart. 

I hated planets like these. Worse, there was no warning I was going to breathe in pure methane until I did. The Reach wasn’t above ruining planets as a final ‘up yours.’ If anything, they went out of their way to start doing it to lower how much the planets were worth and to make fighting here a giant pain in the ass. 

Slowing my breathing even more, I watched Borgos destroy what was left of the military base within a few minutes. Only craters, rubble, and corpses were left behind when he started to wander forward, likely driven by his hearing since his sense of smell would be worthless. Hopefully, there won't be any lasting side effects for breathing in this air for so long. 

I pressed my scanner, seeing millions of power levels on a general can with tens of thousands dead ahead, only a handful of them higher than 1,000. It was hard to tell which ones were the other team of saiyans and which ones were scarabs. Quite a few of them were over 50,000, and in my experience, that meant vanguard scarabs. One higher power level raced towards us, not so far away that I couldn’t see that it was a scarab intent on stopping Borgos before he could reach the city. 

I blasted forward, my scouter marking the scarabs location some distance ahead of me. 6500. Scout class. Taking in a long bracing breath, summoned my ki before launching an orb of it in the scarabs direction. At some point, they picked up some kind of sensor because the moment my attack neared, it swerved out of the way. 

Shifting to look up at me, I saw the familiar black and blue pattern over its body, its scarab shifting into a jetpack while its arms melded together into one giant plasma cannon. Before it could fire a shot, it was forced to dodge a ki blast from Borgo’s mouth by soaring upwards, only to be peppered by machinegun ki blasts as I closed the distance between us. 

They wouldn’t damage it too much, but it obscured my approach long enough that I could get in close. Sailing through the smoke, I slammed a fist into the scarabs face, sending it flying to the side before it could correct itself, aiming blindly with its plasma cannon and firing. Bright blue plasma cut through the smoke, heat washing over the back of my neck as I ducked underneath. Shooting forward, I pressed the attack. 

This time it was more prepared for me, the large cannon splitting and shifting into twin swords, so much like the one that stabbed me through the heart years ago. I launched a kick at its head, gliding out of the way of a swipe meant to bisect me, before flipping to land an axe-kick. Its yellow-tinted eyes stared up at me where it blocked my attack, its blank mask radiating hate. 

“You!” It was amazing how much hate and rage could be conveyed through a single word, through a translator, no less. “You’re going to pay for this!” With its free arm, it made a swipe at me, intending to take my leg off but I flipped out of the way, summoning my ki as I did. As I fired off the ki blasts, I saw it take a wild swipe at me before it was knocked backward by the force. Twisting my way out of its path, I cupped my hands at my side. 

“Kamehameha!” I shouted, rapidly forming the technique and firing it off. The scarab was wiser this time, flying out of the way, one arm forming a cannon while the other remained a blade. 

“How many?!” It roared, rushing towards me with blind rage. It fired a plasma blast, missing by a mile as I raced to meet it halfway. “How many have you murdered, you monster?!”

I didn’t respond, my hand catching the blade aimed to take my head off, guiding it out of the way as I lashed out with a leg, catching it in the stomach. It folded underneath my attack like paper, metal creaking, but other than that it was fine. 

“Answer me!” It roared, lashing out wildly, firing its plasma cannon to push me back. It worked, forcing me to back off. It fired another blast to give itself more distance, then the scarab limbs attached it its body lifted up to point at me. My eyes widened a fraction when they fired off yellow beams of light at me. One hit my thigh guard, the plate fractured off but it did its job. 

Frowning, I flew wide, lasers trailing behind me before I started to return fire. This was new. So was the alien. He fought like a scarab that just got one, a rookie that was still learning exactly what its suit could do. If there had to be surprises, then this was the best time to spring them. 

Spinning, I slipped between two beams before changing direction. Lobbing another ki blast at it, the energy washed over the thick shield. Tsking to myself, I summoned another one, stronger this time, then launched it. Again, the shield remained. That was new. Did they change the liquid metal? Or was it a new method to it? There was a rumor floating around that they were infusing it with nanomachines, so maybe that was the case. 

Again, I summoned another ki blast, the ki building from the size of a golf ball to a baseball then a basketball. Aiming it, it launched at the shield, this time it did more than wash over it. It punched through the shield, grinding away at it until it broke through it and into the alien behind it. 

“Agh,” the scarab grunted, a hole revealing I grazed its side, its shield and side reforming as liquid metal filled the holes. The metal suit shimmered, the surface rippling before bulged outwards. Its armor bulked up, the arms of the scarab going back onto the suit before sinking into it, the source of the extra bulk. I heard it struggle to control its breathing, not because of the pain but because of the anger. 

“Why…” It bit out, a barely suppressed scream in its voice. “Why is it that you haven’t turned into a giant monkey?” It demanded to know, earing a twitch from me at the slur. My lips pressed into a thin line, refusing to answer. 

What would be the point? What would it change? Did the fact I didn’t want to massacre civilians matter at all? No, not when they all still died anyway. I just wasn’t the one doing it. My reasons and justifications felt hollow to me already, I didn’t need to say them out loud to know that they were pathetic excuses. 

The scarab snarled, the shield shifting into a massive cannon that fired at me. I sailed out of the way, darting towards it as a plasma beam arcing towards me but too late. I closed the distance between us and slammed my fist into the side of its head. It jerked to the side, dazed, but not out of the fight. As the cannons split apart, turning into swords to split me apart, I flipped over them to plant my feet into its face. 

It shot back, its jetpack struggling to keep it afloat, but no real damage. The armor was made of some pretty tough stuff. 

“How...how...how could you do this…?” It asked itself more than me. I’m not sure if I gave it a concussion, but its eyes looked unfocused- ah. It was looking behind me. I didn’t need to look over my shoulder to know what was taking place, even this far away, if I listened closely, I could hear the destruction. Borgos had reached the city. “What does Frieza want? Why…” It trailed off, its shoulders sagging. 

Then it squared them, finding its spine as it looked up at me with not rage, hate or malice, but determination. I knew that look even if I couldn’t see its expression. It was an expression only a select few ever wore in their lives. It was an expression that could only be worn when something was staring the end in the face and they said ‘Not today.’

I saw that expression countless times over the past few years. It always ended the same way. 

“Riot Javelin,” I uttered, a spiraling blue orb of ki formed in my hands before I launched it at the scarab. The scarab slapped its arms together, a mega plasma cannon that attached itself all the way to its chest formed. It fired a blast, meeting my attack dead on. Undeterred, the Riot Javelin pushed through the plasma, too small to stop it dead in its tracks, but that didn’t matter. It raced towards the source, slamming into the barrel of the cannon and kept going. 

A bright explosion lit up the sky, heat washing over my face. At this point, I was used to it. Smoke hovered in the air, obscuring the scarab for a long second before something dipped out of the cloud. The scarab. A corpse. 

A large hole punched through its chest, destroying the scarab on its back. I learned over time that the only way to put them down was to destroy the scarab. Otherwise, they would just use the corpse as a puppet to keep fighting. 

I watched it fall, smoke trailing behind it. I couldn’t tell if it was dead, but I hoped it was. At the very least, I wanted my kills to be clean and quick. The scarab hit the ground, forming a crater on impact, andy laying still. When the liquid metal receded, there was nothing to tell it apart from the countless other corpses that surrounded it. 

“I really hope Bardock never learns I stole his technique,” I mused, tearing my gaze away to look out at the city. It was haunting how quickly the sight of a rampaging ape reducing a city to ruins could become so familiar.

I found myself glancing down at the corpse I made one last time, its words ringing in my head like a bell. 

I wish I had an answer.