Going Native: Homecoming (ch.38) (Patreon)

One more chapter for this arc to go. I tried to wrap it up in this one, but couldn’t quite fit everything I wanted. 

...

"Think of a mountain shrinking to become a hill. Then picture that hill becoming a boulder. Then than boulder becomes a rock. That rock becomes a pebble. The pebble is what your power level needs to be,” I told Broly, who sat cross-legged in a seat with a platoon’s worth of rations wrappers piled up next to him. Broly practically was covered by the lime green ear that was wrapped around his shoulders, as if it were a blanket. It might as well have been because Broly looked like he was about to nod off. 

“Broly, this is important,” I told him, handing over my scouter. “Watch how I do it,” I told him, making Broly jerk awake. I tried to not let myself be frustrated with the lack of progress in the past couple of hours. It wasn’t even Broly’s fault that I was in… a bad mood. So, I resolved that I wouldn’t take it out on him. 

Taking in a calming breath, I pictured a mountain that represented my true power level. I began to compress it, making it smaller until that mountain I had pictured became a large hill. Reading the visor backward, I saw that my displayed power level had decreased from nineteen hundred down to eight thousand. Behind the visor, Broly’s expression was awed, as if he couldn’t possibly believe his eyes. So, at the very least, he understood what numbers were. 

I continued, turning that hill into a boulder. This time my power level read as four thousand, cutting it in half again. And now the boulder became a rock, making my power level shrink down to two thousand. Then the pebble where I did some finetuning so my final counter was nineteen hundred. 

“You need to be able to do this Broly. The sooner the better,” I told him, trying to stress how important it was. I didn’t want to be like his father, who used pain to train Broly and once he became unable to truly hurt Broly, Paragus began to use the memory of pain and the shock collar. 

What was that saying? The carrot and the stick? I didn’t want to use the stick, so what would be the carrot?

“If you do, then when we get to Planet Vegeta, I’ll give a big piece of the Sky King,” I offered and that earned Broly’s undivided attention. Apparently he had only eaten bugs and bug eggs for his entire short life, so it was as if he were making up for lost time by trying everything he could get his hands on. 

“The Sky King?” Broly echoed, practically drooling even though he probably didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. 

“It’s a really big monster that’s been terrorizing the planet for a while now. It’s extremely large that can fire ki attacks out of its mouth like we do out of our hands. A bunch of kids that I’m training are tasked with defeating it, and when they succeed, I was going to have the Sky King cooked. I bet it’s going to be really tasty,” I trailed off and Broly wasn’t just practically drooling anymore. He was up until he wiped his chin with the back of his hand. 

“I’ll learn it! But… how big of a piece can I have when I have to share it with other kids?” He asked, tilting his head. I gave the question some thought before I gave a small shrug. 

“Given the size of up, and dividing it evenly between a hundred-odd kids… your piece should be somewhere around the size of ten of you,” I guessed. Broly hopped off his chair before he placed a hand on top of his head. Standing to the side, he started to look up as if he were trying to imagine exactly how big the piece of meat would be. If only the roof of the space shuttle would allow it. 

“The Sky King is big,” Broly decided, sounding awed and hungry. "Can he really fly? Like we do?" 

I started to shake my head before I started to consider it. The Sky King was utterly massive, and it was probably too big to fly back when it nearly ate me. Even with its sizable wingspan, it's body was too thick and heavy to fly in galactic standard gravity, much less ten times the standard on Planet Vegeta. "Maybe? It has wings that it flaps to fly… but it might use ki to help itself fly," I said more to myself than to Broly. 

Over the years, I've learned that not all energy attacks were ki. Some aliens produced attacks that were similar, but in the end, their energy was more like electricity. It could be powerful but only channeled in very few ways. Ki was life energy, free and malleable. I had assumed that the breath attack the Sky King had nearly obliterated me with was an energy attack, but if it was using it to help him fly… then that hinted that the Sky King was using ki. Something I thought was unique to saiyans. 

"Ohhh…" Broly muttered, trying to picture it for a moment before he shook his head as if to dislodge the image. He took my scouter off his face, blinking a few times before he handed it back to me. "I wanna try again! And do I have to wear one of those? I don't like everything looking red." 

"You do," I confirmed with a nod of my head. If anyone saw his eyes then that would defeat the purpose of the trick I was trying to perform. "I have Technician -- one of my subordinates -- looking into making scouters without the tint to them. For now though, you'll have to deal with it. Is there a color in particular you would like?" 

Though, I didn't really need to ask in the first place. "Green," Broly answered quickly, "like Bah's ear." 

"I'll make sure it's the same color. But first, you have to master this," I told Broly and earned a firm nod from him. It was odd -- we were around the same age, but I kept finding myself thinking that he was younger than me. I guess it was because Broly didn't receive all the lessons in the tank before he was sent to Vamp. It was just that he acted younger. And looked younger as well with the ear wrapped around his shoulders. 

Broly nodded before he closed his eyes. I activated my scouter and waited for it to start ticking down. And, almost instantly, I noticed the difference from earlier attempts and now that he had some motivation. His incredibly high base power level began to shrink downward slowly, starting with only a few points at a time. Then jumps started to be made by hundreds of points.

I waited until his power level hit seventy-two thousand before I said, “stop. Broly, I want you to remember what the mountain looks like now. That’s one of the markers you need to remember,” I told him. Broly’s eyes clenched, his eyebrows drawing together as he made a face of intense concentration before he gave me a small nod. 

Once he had it memorized, we continued with the exercise. In the end, he had ten markers, each a multiplier he would hit, until his power level settled on eight thousand. It took some time, but Broly was already getting the hang of keeping it there. And in time, he wouldn’t have to think about doing it at all. 

“That’s the power level you have to maintain, okay? When you fight, increase your power level by one of those markers depending on how strong your opponent is,” I told him. This way it would look like his utterly insane power level was a result of the Wrath State. His personality would conflict with it a bit, but that could be passed off as him mastering it. Either way, until I got a lot stronger, it was far too dangerous to teach Broly the Wrath State. 

At most, we could risk a times two Wrath State boost, similar to how I would be introducing the Wrath State to the others. For now though, it would be best not to throw too much at Broly at once. Especially not when we were in a space ship surrounded by a vacuum 

“Hm!” Broly nodded in agreement, his power level not wavering as he seemed thoroughly pleased with himself. Or, rather, with the reward he would soon be receiving. 

“Good work,” I returned the nod before I gestured to the door. “We should go find the others. We should be landing on Planet Vegeta soon enough.” With Broly in step and his power level still level, for the most part, we walked through the shuttle ship. The walls were a whitish-gray while the floor was a solid white with segmented tiles. A basic design. 

Using my ki sense, I picked up on Fasha and Paragus’ presences. They were together again, which wasn’t so surprising. Paragus didn’t seem to like me at all, even after he had calmed down. Beets’ presence was on the opposite end of Paragus, something he seemed to stride to do at any given moment. 

We approached the door that Fasha and Paragus were behind, and it slid open at our approach. Stepping inside, I saw both of them were sitting down. Which wouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary if it wasn’t for their too stiff posture. 

My eyes narrowed behind my scouter. Did… Fasha have a thing for older guys?

Well, that wasn’t any of my business. 

“What’s the eta to Planet Vegeta?” I asked since Fasha was the one keeping up on it. I focused on training Broly in the meantime. 

“We’re two jumps out, so about thirty minutes or so,” Fasha answered, standing up. “I’ll go check to see if the bar if filled up. If it is, then we can go ahead a make another jump.” The bar in question was a bar that more or less measured how safe it was to make a jump. Then Fasha not so subtly jerked her head to Paragus. 

“He was wanting to talk to you,” Fasha informed, making Paragus sputter. I’m guessing that this wasn’t his idea. “Let’s go get something to eat on the way Broly. They’re going to be talking about grown-up stuff,” Fasha said, going to leave the room and expecting for Broly to follow. However, he paused, looking at me, then at his father, a look of faint puzzlement on his face. 

“But…,” he started, looking at Fasha uncertainty, “Tarble isn’t a grown-up?” He pointed out before he looked at me, as if double-checking. “He’s small, like me.”

Luckily, Elery had prepared me for this kind of question. 

“We’re going to talk about stuff that’ll bore you. You’re better off going with Fasha and getting something to eat. There are plenty of flavored rations that you haven’t tried yet,” I said and the expression Broly gave me was almost enough to get a weak smile from me. Broly staggered back, like the knowledge physically hit him, and he couldn’t even begin to conceive such a thing. 

Though, that didn’t let that stop him from finding out because, without another word, Broly blasted off towards the kitchen. I heard Fasha chuckling as she rushed after him, leaving me and Paragus alone. And it was as if Broly had taken what little of a good mood that I had with him. As the doors closed, I turned around and looked at Paragus. 

"What?" I asked curtly. I didn't want to be the kind of person that took their bad mood out on others, but I was finding that I held very little patience for Paragus. It wasn't even about his continued grudge against King Vegeta either. It was… his complete lack of willingness to own up to his mistakes. 

Paragus' face twisted like he ate something sour as his one eye stared hard right back at me. A few seconds after we began the staring contest, Paragus let out a sigh that seemed to deflate him. "I would like to apologize to you, Prince Tarble," he said, and that caught me off guard. "Regardless of what I feel for your father, you are undeserving of my ire. No… not only that, but you saved me and my son from that place. Thank you." 

… I didn't believe that for a second. But the question was why he was suddenly apologizing? Was he hoping to get on my good side before we met with King Vegeta?

After a few seconds, I realized he was waiting for a response. "It's fine," I said, trying to dismiss the issue. The fact that he was angry with me for being King Vegeta's son wasn't why I found myself disliking him. "Just don't let it happen again." 

Paragus' nodded in acceptance, "I won’t. And if you have the time, I was hoping to ask what role I will have in your army?" 

Ah. So that's why he was apologizing.  

"Until you learn the Wrath State, you'll be with the general troops. After we'll be picking up the rest of the 501st," I told him. The other eleven thousand or so troops were ones that I had handpicked over the past two years. Lord Frieza gave me permission to choose who I liked, and I think I chose well. The 501st was going to be able to hit a lot harder than it used to. Much, much harder. 

"As I understand, you'll be giving command of several thousand low-class saiyans to veteran saiyans," Paragus started, making my eyes narrow. An image of Broly grasping at his throat as he screamed in pain entered my mind. Though, I wasn't sure who I was more annoyed with -- Paragus, who thought I would give him command of thousands of children because he asked, or Fasha, for giving him the idea. 

"I'm giving command to those that I trust," I corrected frostily. The Team, Lotuce, and possibly Gine. People that I fought beside, or people that the people that I trusted put trust in. Another few words weighed heavily on my tongue. I knew I shouldn't say them. There was no point in antagonizing him. I didn't want to be the person that did stuff like that, but in my foul mood, I couldn't stop myself. 

"And given how you treated your son, I won't trust thousands of other children in your care," I spoke, regretting the words even as I said them. Not because I regretted them, but because of how pointless they were. Unsurprisingly, Paragus didn't react well to them and whatever neutral ground that was established with his apology was lost. 

His line eye darkened with anger as he scowled at me. "Don't speak of things you know nothing about!" He snapped at me, banging a fist against the table hard enough that he warped the metal. "You weren't there! In no time at all, Broly was stronger than me and he was completely out of control! I couldn't even move fast enough to grab his tail anymore. I didn't have a choice!" 

"Maybe," I admitted, undercutting his anger with agreement. "I can't imagine that you were stronger than Broly for long. Or anything on that planet was. That shock collar was probably the only chance you had if he turned into an oozaru," I agreed with him as my lips pressed together into a thin frown. "But that's not what I was talking about. You tried to turn Broly into your personal attack dog to claim vengeance that you were too weak to claim yourself. You were utterly irrational, driven completely by your feelings to the point you couldn’t even think straight." 

My eyes narrowed into slits, "that's why I won't trust you with thousands of low-class lives." I told him flatly, leaving no room for negotiation. With nothing left to say, I turned around and left Paragus alone to stew in his resentment. You'd think after six years, he'd be tired of it by now. Before I walked away, I heard a shout and a thump through the doors of Paragus venting his frustrations. 

If he couldn't handle rejection without acting out, how was he going to handle the Wrath State? Honestly, at this point, I didn't have high hopes for Paragus. If it wasn't for Broly, I'd be looking for a way to send him away to make him someone else's problem. 

Shaking my head of the thoughts, I walked through the halls until I found a temporary room I was using. It didn't have a healing pod, so I couldn't sleep, but it had a desk and a raised chair so I could finish off whatever work Technician had given me. Sitting down, I turned the module on and a hologram of a basic transponder appeared before me. It broke into a hundred different pieces, all neatly organized before a counter started ticking down. 

My hands didn't move. The task wasn't enough to drag my thoughts away from an issue that tormented me since I learned of it. 

King Vegeta tried to kill my team. He tried to kill me. With a bomb. He lied to my face about letting Bardock be the face of the Saiyan race. What else had he lied about? 

I ignored the harsh buzzing sound as the timer hit zero before the puzzle reset itself. Leaning my head back, I stared up at the ceiling, still trying to sort out my thoughts. 

"He did when I was low-class six years ago," I muttered. A lot had changed in six years. Not only was I elite-class, but I created the Wrath State. Mom… back when I had first met her had completely written me off, no different than how King Vegeta did. Was it a double standard? Was I being harsher on King Vegeta because he didn't immediately start showering me with affection? 

King Vegeta had welcomed me into an ancient plot to overthrow the Cold family. Something… I had a whole slew of complicated feelings about, much less my misgivings that such a thing was possible. King Vegeta trusted me. Maybe his feelings had changed?

But he also lied to me. Thinking about it rationally, it wasn't likely that the bomb was meant for me. If King Vegeta wanted me dead, then he all he had to do was kill me as soon as I left the tank. No one would have known and no one would have cared. That meant that the bomb was meant for my team. 

The buzzer rang for the fifteenth time and I wondered if that sound would have been the last thing my team heard before we all died. 

There was bad blood between my team and the royal family. I've known it for years. Ever since Bardock murdered Nappa under the guise of a training accident. When Vegeta started to antagonize my team and they antagonized him right back. I thought it was a case of Vegeta being attached to Nappa and wanting vengeance, but if King Vegeta was trying to kill my team years before that… 

"With a bomb of all things," I muttered, ignoring the beeping again as the puzzle reset. Such an underhanded attempt of assassination. If King Vegeta wanted my team dead so badly that he was willing to kill me as collateral, then why didn't he just do it himself? Wait for us to launch then hit us with a ki attack? None of us would have been able to stop him. 

I thought about it again, but I came to the same exact conclusion that I came to last time. 

"I won't know until I ask him," I continued, speaking over another beep. And only then could I decide how I felt once I heard his answer. 

What I did know was this -- my team was keeping secrets from me. And given who those secrets are connected to, I could only assume that I was being left in the dark because I was a member of the royal family. 

A sigh escaped me as I looked away from the ceiling. My gaze landed on the attempts counter and my heart sank to see that I had twenty-eight attempts already. I tsked to myself, pinching the bridge of my nose, "Technician is going to be disappointed." And I was disappointed in myself. Nearly thirty minutes had passed and I did nothing but think. 

I had put a lot of effort into breaking those bad habits- 

"Tarble! Planet Vegeta is being attacked!" Fasha shouted through my scouter. Whatever malaise clouded my thoughts were cleared in a second. Had the Reach- "We're being attacked by the Frieza-force!" 

For a single moment, my heart went still in my chest. Had Lord Frieza somehow found out? About the plan or Broly? 

"Is Lord Frieza's flagship here?" I asked, ripping through the door because it didn't open fast enough before I made my way down to the docking area. My hands were clenched to fists -- if I had to fight Lord Frieza… then the Saiyan race was doomed. The few remaining saiyans were in two places; on Planet Vegeta and with the 501st. 

If Lord Frieza wanted to wipe us out, then this was his best chance for a quick and easy genocide. 

"No, it's not. The scouters aren't picking up on his power level, either. He's not here," Fasha said, quickly putting that fear to rest. "The thing says that the 31st fleet is the one attacking us. Does that mean anything to you?" 

I thought about it as I quickly secured my mask to my face along with an oxygen tank attached to the small of my back. "No, I have no clue who they are," I answered. If they were a fleet that were stationed nearby to Mom's fleet then I would recognize them, if only because they would have factored into my plans to take Antiople. "Abandon the ship and suit up. I'm heading out now," I ordered, slamming a fist on the button to ventilate the docking area. 

"On my way. What about Broly, Paragus, and Beets?" Fasha asked as I felt the familiar void of space when I flew out of the docking bay. From being on the other end, I recognized the offensive positioning of the hundreds of ships positioned in the atmosphere. There were two masses that contained the bulk of the fleet as they bombarded Planet Vegeta. Countless blasts of plasma, lasers, and explosives rained down on the surface. 

Which was good. You bombarded population centers before you sent in the army to mop up. If they were still attacking from orbit then that meant the Saiyan race wasn't in danger of going extinct. 

I nearly told Fashac to take care of them both before I caught myself. A memory flashed of my first mission -- when I had been a Saiyan in body only. Broly… reminded me of myself back then. If only because he didn't act like a normal Saiyan. If he had the same reaction I did on the battlefield then he could get himself killed. Simply because if someone was willing to attack us then it was because they were certain they could at the very least handle King Vegeta. 

"Send Broly to me. You head down with Paragus and Beets to find Mom. Find out what the ground situation looks like," I ordered, blasting odd towards the ships as ki gathered in my hands. I was so angry with the situation I barely noticed as the familiar pain of the Wrath State filled me. "I don't think we've ever had to fight a defensive battle before," I realized before I fell upon the fleets position. 

Ki blasts raced from my hands, tearing through their positioning just as the blasts of ki tore through the ships. I carved a deep line through their formation, leaving devastation in my wake. Before they could respond by scattering, as the pilots were trained to do, I continued quickly laying waste to the fleet. One good thing about getting attacked by the Frieza-force was I knew exactly how they would respond. 

And because I knew exactly how they would react, I easily predicted their movements. The ships scattered, breaking up into groups, but I destroyed them with the same ease as I did as they were in a giant clump. Lights from explosions surrounded me completely, and once they faded, scrap metal and corpses floated in the vacuum of space, most clutching their throats as they died of suffocation. 

I didn't recognize the species, but I noticed that all of the corpses were of the same species. The skin tone varied from light blue to black, and the hair was various shades of that same spectrum, but other than that, they looked like saiyans. What stood out the most was the addition to their uniforms. A circle with three narrow ovals that were drawn with the same line, connecting in the center of the circle to form a roundish triangle. 

"This isn’t an ordinary slave race," I noted before I turned my attention down to the ships fleeing towards Planet Vegeta. Not all slave races were created equal. For a unified force with a unified race -- this race, whatever they were, stood at a similar rank of slavery as the Saiyan race did. Or higher. 

But that was a good thing as well. It made them easier to track down. 

My gaze darted to the other thick formation to see pics of light in the distance. It was difficult to tell from so far away, but it looked like someone was already dealing with that half. Likely King Vegeta. Which freed me up to hunt down the fleeing ships. 

"Broly," I said, expanding my awareness to find Broly's presence. It was much more difficult now that he was hiding his power level, but given the diminished numbers around me, I found him easily enough. Broly wore a mask, the fur ear still wrapped around his shoulders, and he floated in front of a body. A corpse of an alien.

Seeing death was odd, I thought. Before I got used to it, it was harder to see a corpse that looked like me. Now… Saiyan or alien, a corpse was a corpse. And I saw plenty of them by now. 

"Follow me. Stick close to me," I ordered, starting Broly out of his thoughts. He looked at me with wide Eve's before he gave a hesitant nod. A second later, both of us blasted down to the surface of the planet. We punched through the clouds, easily spotting the ships that flew through the air simply because they were the few things in- 

My thoughts were interrupted as a loud roar shook the planet, or at the very least it felt like it did. Vibrations traveled through the air, washing over me like the aftershock of an explosion. I heard Broly gasp behind me as we came to a sudden stop. First, I looked at him before I realized he was looking at something far off in the distance. I looked over just in time to see an utterly massive black mass rush upwards out of a canyon, an explosion flashing where the black mass caught a ship in its teeth before buying down. 

Once it reached a certain height, it unfurled it's massive wings and flapped them once. The rest of the squad of ships tried to turn away, but most of them slammed into the creature's black armor-like scales that covered its underbelly. 

"That's the Sky King," I told Broly, eyeing the creature. It was much bigger than the time it nearly ate me. Before, ten of me could have fit comfortably in its mouth. Now it's massive maw could fit closer to a hundred. I noticed a scar on its flank when it turned to lash out at the few that had managed to fly out of the way in time, a scar that Vegeta had given it, so it was the same creature. It was almost hard to believe just looking at it. 

"Whoa!" Broly cheered and I could practically hear the smile in his voice. "It's like Bah! Except for its black and it can fly!" Broly pointed out, making me glance at him. 

"What do you mean by that?" I asked, only for Broly to point at the Sky King. 

"He plays like Bah!" Broly answered and out if the corner of my eye, I saw a bright flash of light. Reacting instantly, I placed myself in front of Broly and reached out with a single hand. I felt the power of the attack for a split second before it slammed into the palm of my hand. The ki blast was utterly massive, similar to the kind of ki breath attack an oozaru, so the moment it slammed into my palm with incredible force, for a few seconds the only thing I could see was white. 

But it's size worked against it. If it had compressed the attack into a much narrower stream, then it might have taken me both hands to deflect the ki blast. 

"Whoa…!" Broly breathed behind me as the attack faded away. In the distance, the Sky King flapped its wings, steam emitting from its mouth as it glared hatefully at me. I… think I was spot on about its sentience. Six years later and it looked like I was still at the top of its shit list. "Is he your friend? Like Bah? I don't want to eat your friend!" Broly shouted, sounding genuinely distraught by the idea. 

I didn't look away from the Sky King, and it didn't look away from me. Not even as ships began to circle it, firing at its thick scaling. Its eyes narrowed as I lowered my hand, but made no move to counter. Its nostrils flared out in irritation as it realized it was no match for me. 

And, with that, it turned it's attention to far weaker prey. 

I glanced at the scuff marks on my palm for a moment. "There's no way that they're going to be able to beat that," I muttered to myself. At the very least I realized I gave them an impossible task before I threw the hundred future leaders of my army at it. Though… no, it wasn't worth the risk of making them fight it anyway. This invasion was a perfect opportunity to teach them the lesson I wanted them to learn. 

Pressing down on my scouter as I took off towards the capital, and where Vegeta was, I spoke, “Gine, I’m back on the planet. What’s the situation?” I asked, and for a moment, there was no answer. Right when my mind jumped to the worst, Gine spoke on the other end. 

“The situation is under control. There was a rouge squad that landed near the children, but none of them have died. Your sister is the most injured -- it seems that she was forced to cut off her tail when the rouge squad attempted to flee. Her and Olaive’s teams chased them down while I dealt with one left behind so the rest could get away,” Gine quickly explained. My heart squeezed in my chest when I heard that Elery was hurt, but better hurt than dead. Her tail would regrow. 

“Are they fit to fight?” I asked, “what about the other children? Are they safe?”

“Matillo and Queen Teach have protected the children while King and Prince Vegeta have been dealing with the invaders. But, the children… they had a competition on who would get to fight the squad that landed near us,” Gine explained. 

I thought about that for a second. “Tell the kids that the very last thing that they should be doing when our planet is being invaded is to be fighting against each other,” I told Gine.

“I’m-”

“You’re fine,” I quickly reassured her. “Keeping them out of the fight was the right choice. But telling them that isn’t what they need to learn.” I spotted a massive explosion not too far away that could have only come from Vegeta. “Once the bulk of the army is dealt with, I’ll stop by and we can organize them into a fighting force.” With that, I ended the communication, blasting forward. 

I glanced behind me to see that Broly was still right behind me. Good. I didn’t want to accidentally leave him behind. 

As we neared the capital, Castle Vegeta dominating the skyline, I saw that the capital had taken serious damage. The castle was still standing, but a lucky explosion had taken out the center part of the bridge, so a fair bit of the castle gave way. The capital itself was more of a ruin than it normally was with thick pillars of smoke drifting upwards as what wasn’t craters burned uncontrollably. 

I wonder if the enemy knew that we didn’t care about our cities? At the very least not enough to bother building them back up after we had destroyed them taking them from the Truffles. 

A massive blast of multicolored light caught my attention as it washed over a portion of the city. Only instead of leaving absolute devastation in its wake, the buildings remained standing. Well, they were on fire and mostly destroyed, but that attack didn’t look like it did anything to them. My gaze zeroed in on the source, my scouter activating to measure his power level. 

250. 

The source in question was another alien of the same species as the others. His skin was a dark gray, his hair a close cut of pure white. He dropped to a knee, visibly exhausted but above his shoulder were three balls of multicolored light. What’s more, with his hands outstretched, he maintained a pure white barrier that matched the emblem that I saw earlier. 

I slowed to a stop, Broly stopping right behind me a tad too close before I looked at his opponent. Vegeta was in the Wrath State, but something was wrong. His armor was scuffed and I saw that he was bleeding from several cuts, the worst one was above his eye. Did the odd aliens have some kind of special attack that let them hit way above their weight class? I didn’t know what else could explain the fact that my brother was injured at all. 

Vegeta noticed my arrival first. “Don’t interfere in my fight Tarble,” he warned, bringing the other alien’s attention to me. There was grim determination etched into his face and he forced himself to stand. Surrounding them, and us, were thousands of power levels. What was left of the army that was sent here. 

“I wasn’t going to,” I told him. Injured or not, I knew Vegeta was still going to win. He didn’t need my help. “But could you explain what’s going on here?” 

“These pieces of trash invaded for some reason. Something about our race being evil, or something. I wasn’t paying attention. Then the leader of the trash realized that I was massacring his troops and challenged me to a one on one fight,” Vegeta explained, smirking down at the alien, who glared up at the two of us. However, Vegeta’s smirk fell after a moment. “He’s using some kind of weird energy.”

“It’s the power of righteousness!” The alien spat both of us. “The Stardust attacks destroy the wickedness in others. The fact you are injured at all Prince Vegeta betrays your true nature! Your malevolence will be your downfall!” The alien swore, digging deep to find strength to at least bluster. Then he turned his attention to me. 

“And you, Prince Tarble, will be the next to fall,” he swore, his dark blue eyes glowing with intensity. 

I shared a look with Vegeta, “well… he doesn’t lack confidence,” I remarked. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the alien bristle, but he didn’t attack in his anger. I guess if I was going to provoke him, I would have to try harder. Still, what he said was worrying. 

His weak power level aside, he was able to injure Vegeta. That alone made him a threat that I had to take seriously. 

But first, I needed more information. “Whose idea was it for you to attack us?” I asked directly, ignoring an annoyed look from Vegeta for stalling his fight. 

“I refuse to give you that information,” the alien stated unflinchingly. My gaze lingered on the glowing symbol before him, assuming that it worked as some kind of shield. Given how he spoke, I could guess his motivations easily enough. And… no. This wasn’t the time for old thoughts. 

“Fine. Then at least tell me why you’re attacking us in the first place,” I said, watching the alien’s eyes flick over to Broly. Who gave him a small wave and a hesitant smile. 

“Because you are yet another barbarous race of Mongul’s ilk!” The alien spat at me with no small amount of venom. “We avoided being conquered by that tyrant, our planet stolen, only to be enslaved by King Cold. For nearly a thousand years, my race has perfected our magic to fight monsters that wish for nothing but blood and death. Races like you saiyans! Once you are gone from this world, we will turn our attention to petty tyrants like Frieza and Mongul then Darkseid himself!”

I blinked at that and heard Vegeta let out a small laugh. “You’re right Tarble. He doesn’t lack confidence.” A savage smile began to tug at Vegeta’s lips as he decided that the time for talk was drawing to a close as he prepared a ki attack above his palm. “But, whatever your name is, I don’t think you’ve thought this through. You’ve just admitted to treason. You’ve attacked my planet. Do you really think I would let that go answered?”

Vegeta’s smile grew until it was sharp enough to cut. “You came here to wipe out the saiyan race? Don’t make me laugh. After I’m done wiping you out down to the last man, I’m going to find what’s left of your pathetic species. They’re going to die. All of them. Down to the last man, woman, and child. And as they die screaming, I will tell them that you are to blame.”

My gaze lingered on Vegeta and Broly strategically placed me between them. The alien didn’t respond. His gaze settled into a grim expression as the symbol before him grew brighter, the three balls above his shoulders began to display every color in the rainbow. He wore the expression of someone that realized that the stakes were too high for them to fail. 

His words from earlier echoed in my head as I stood back to watch the fight, deciding to trust Matillo and Mom to take care of the children. 

A thought that had lingered for years now came back, tugging at my attention.

A soft sigh escaped me, my shoulders slumping in acceptance of a conclusion I had came to years ago finally settled into place. 

I… couldn’t help but wonder what that attack -- the Stardust whatever… it destroyed evil… 

I couldn’t help but wonder what it would do to me.