Gone Native: Dawn of a New Day (ch. 35) (Patreon)

Elery knew something was going on with Kakarot. It was also pretty easy to guess what. "Are you going to finish that?" She asked her long time friend and teammate, all of her team sitting in a booth in an Earthling restaurant. Even Broly, despite the fact they all thought he was dead for years. Things almost felt like they had returned to normal.

Except for the fact that there had been a veritable feast in front of them -- so much food that the restaurant had to kick all the humans out because they didn't carry enough food to feed four Saiyans and their normal human customers. Most of it was gone, the only remnants were grease stains on plates that Olaive was licking off. The little that was left was what Kakarot had called 'dibs' on, meaning it was his. Kara told her that was a really important rule in human culture, and she didn't want to cause trouble for her brother while on Earth.

He was certain that this would end in disaster, and maybe he was right, but she didn't want to be the one that proved him so.

"Huh?" Kakarot muttered, looking up from his bucket of chicken wings covered in a sweet and hot sauce. He seemed to realize that he had been dejectedly staring at his meal for the past minute. "Yeah, I am!" He quickly answered, grabbing a few wings and shoving them in his mouth, the bones crunching loudly for a few chews before he swallowed. However, not a second later, he hesitated for a second, then proceeded to grab another handful.

He was forcing himself to eat.

Kakarot might be dying.

Elery wasn't sure how exactly she should bring up Kakarot's imminent demise. But she wasn't  sure what else could explain his lack of appetite and he was acting completely unlike himself. Kakarot was never quiet. "This is a nice place," Elery decided, leaning back in her seat while the servants recorded them on their primitive phones.

"We should have attacked this place sooner. Could you imagine fighting the war with this stuff as rations?" Olaive questioned, setting another licked clean plate to the side. Broly shifted at the mention of the war, looking uncomfortable like he always did when it was brought up. It must have really sucked -- being treated as a secret weapon and kept out of the war to be used on Frieza, only for Tarble to kill Frieza himself. Elery wasn't sure if that counted as kill stealing or not.

"Tarble didn't attack Earth, he…" Broly started, only to trail off when he knew it would do no good. Olaive didn't see the difference. It's why she wasn't the team leader, like she was.

"Earth attacked Brother," Elery said, giving a sad shake of her head. Honestly, what were the earthlings thinking? Kara was super strong, but even she now understood that she couldn't beat Brother in a straight fight. And in a straight fight, the planet Earth would be reduced to chunks because Brother was the Legendary Super Saiyan. Destroying planets was kinda the entire point of the transformation.

In response, Olaive gave a thoroughly uncaring shrug, "Meh, same thing really."

"Where is your brother?" Kakarot questioned, something he often did now whenever he and Tarble shared a planet. Elery would think that something had happened between her brother and friend, but for the life of her, she couldn't think of what. As far as Elery knew, Brother and Kakarot hadn't even been in the same room since the war ended.

"His tower. He's been doing King stuff," Elery answered. Her brother really was a glutton for punishment. If it was her, she'd just toss all that boring stuff to Ada'la and call it a day. Ada'la was one of those weird aliens that thought tedious work and stuff like 'spheres of influence' was fun. "Apparently I have to go to some festival on an island."

"With Wonder Woman? She's strong," Broly pointed out, making Elery perk up. The reluctance of getting dragged to some event with some weaklings was lifted ever so slightly. Kara had talked about Wonder Woman too. Maybe she could challenge her to a duel or something? Anything that would make their stay on Earth a little less… boring.

Her attention drifted back to Kakarot to see him eating at the most subdued pace she had ever seen. "What's wrong?" Elery questioned, deciding to cut right to the chase. Kakarot seemed to freeze, caught off guard, his eyes darting to her, then to the others, then back to her. He swallowed a mouthful of food before he offered a small shrug.

"Earth isn't as exciting as I thought it would be," he said, looking away from her. Ahh… yeah, that explained everything. Kakarot was bored and disappointed.

Olaive was quick to voice her agreement, "Yeah! I thought this place was supposed to be a non-stop battle planet with really strong enemies, but we've been here a day already and there hasn't been a single fight." She complained rather vocally, throwing her head back and tossing the final plate on a tall leaning tower of them.

"The fights have to come to us," Elery decided. That was a rule if they were going to stay on Earth. They couldn't start fights, but they could end them. That being said, even when they went looking for trouble, it seemed to evade them. Other teams had better luck, but her team… not so much. The reason being, well… "We're too strong," Elery decided with a sigh.

She was pretty powerful. Thanks to her fights with Kara and Kori, she shot up the rankings. She was officially the second most powerful Saiyan alive, and unofficially the third. Broly, on the other hand, was the strongest. Even stronger than Brother. Olaive and Kakarot were in the top ten. Both also making their way up the ranks. Compared to everyone else, they must seem like certain defeat, thus unapproachable.

Olaive tsked, "Cowards."

"Let's not give them a choice, then," Elery decided, standing up. The Titans would know where to get some decent fights. Robin might be a spindly human, but he always seemed to know something worth knowing. Olaive perked up, Kakarot looked a bit relieved, but Broly…

"So long as no one dies," Broly pointed out, worried about Brother's rules. Elery wasn't really sure why -- it wasn't like they applied to him. Brother throwing Broly, or her, in jail? The idea of it was hilarious.

"Sure, sure -- no one's gonna die," Olaive quickly reassured, flying up. Elery paid for the meal with the new money that the Empire used. She was still getting used to the idea of paying for things, but Elery found that she liked paying for food. Giving money to cooks meant that they could buy more food, which meant they could make more delicious meals for her to eat. The whole economy thing that Brother talked about made a lot more sense in hindsight. The servants waved them goodbye and wished that they would come again, giggling amongst themselves.

Elery really didn't get why, but chalked it up to human weirdness. Leaving the restaurant, her and her team took to the skies, blasting away from some human city. Metropolis? Ehh, didn't matter. All human cities kinda looked the same. The only one worth recognizing was Jump city because it housed the Titans.

It took them a handful of minutes to arrive at the outskirts of the city. Taking out her scouter, Elery did a quick scan of the city to find that there weren't any noteworthy people in the city. Beyond those that she was already looking for. However, the action triggered an alert for a program that she had downloaded into her scouter. "Food truck!" Elery announced, making an instant detour down to the ground. Human food trucks were the height of human cuisine according to everything that she had heard.

"Dibs! Dibs!" Olaive claimed, darting down towards it, making Elery tsk. Did finders keepers apply here? Why did humans have to be so complicated?

"I didn't want hotdogs anyway," Elery decided, even though she kinda did, before blasting off to another her scouter hand picked up. Tacos and burritos? That was new. Elery touched down lightly at the back of a small line in front of a large vehicle with a human giving out food from a window. The other humans flinched at her arrival, eyeing her warily before they decided to leave. Elery smiled broadly as she strolled to the front of the line.

"Can… I help you…?" The human chef questioned, swallowing thickly.

"I'll take everything," Elery decided, giving the man an arbitrary amount of money. The smoking stick that was in the man's mouth fell when he saw the total, his eyes widening.

"That'll just be a minute, your… ah, highness?" He told her before immediately going to work. Elery was glad for it -- humans were really weak, but they took their food seriously. It might be their only redeeming feature for those that couldn't develop cool powers. Honestly, she hadn't been sure why the meta-humans just didn't get rid of the normal humans. Her brief stay on Earth made the decision make way more sense.

While she waited, Elery turned her attention to a… thing. It was like a hologram, except it was physical. There was the bald headed human that was King of the Humans on the screen, "World hunger is a thing of the past. For more than a century, the US alone had the capacity to feed the entirety of the planet, but still people starved. The issue has never been production but chain of supply and logistics. And, of course, the cost and profits." The image of the bald human faded to a planet. A pretty barren and full looking one too.

"For the first time in human history, I, Lex Luthor, am announcing an initiative  to colonize an alien planet for the sole purpose of cultivating it for food production. This planet alone, which has formally been renamed Harvest, will supply food not only for every human on Earth, but for every member of our species as we take to the stars," the bald human continued. Other humans muttered amongst themselves while Elery tried to make herself impressed.

She guessed that it was a huge change. Kinda like it was when the Saiyans got conquered and they could go out in space. But she hadn't seen that. So, humans getting all excited about a planet for food production was kinda… ehh. Wasn't like Brother didn't have a million of those already.

"It's bullshit," Elery heard one human mutter, not so subtly casting a dark look in her direction. "There's supposed to be a summit. Luthor is already acting like we're joining the Empire."

"There was supposed be a summit already, then we got conquered. Luthor is like the posterboy for capitalism t. Not sure why you're shocked that due process is getting skipped. Like it or not, we're a part of the Empire now," another human, much older than the first one that spoke, dismissed the younger one's concern.

"That's why it's bullshit!" The younger of the two snapped, earning a sharp look from the elder.

"Keep your tone down, Javier," the man snapped.

Javier turned to Elery, giving her a naked glare that she didn't even pretend to not notice. "No, I won't! This is total bullshit! Tarble said there was going to be a summit, then he attacked us! He can spout all that shit about defending his soldiers, but I don't believe it! He's a fucking liar trying to justify what he did to our planet."

Elery couldn't help it. She laughed. Javier scowled deeply, glowering at her, and even the older man looked at her with some anger.

"You humans are funny," Elery decided. "If Brother wanted to conquer your planet, then he would have bombarded your cities, crushed your military, then killed all of your heroes. Like he did to the other millions of planets that he rules over."

That brought Javier short, "Brother?" He echoed, sounding like he suddenly regretted speaking up. Then he puffed out his chest, "Well, you can tell your brother that I said he's full of shit!"

"I will," Elery told him, and again, he looked like he had doubts about the path he was going down. But, instead of rethinking his choices, he decided to forge ahead.

"Good," Javier decided, ignoring the older man's curse.

"He doesn't mean that, your… highness?" The older man tried while the cook was finishing up her order. "He's young and reckless, he doesn't understand what he's saying."

Elery shrugged, "I figured, but Brother will want to hear it anyway. He wants to reassure you humans that things are going to be okay, and he respects people that are brave enough to tell him the truth," she told Javier, accepting her mountain of containers. In edible ones too. Earth was so weird sometimes. "Even if they don't understand anything about what they're talking about."

"What's there to understand? A promise was made to us and a promise was broken," he continued, not at all daunted by the fact that she could flick him away. Actually, no she couldn't. According to her scouter, he was so weak that she'd just splatter him.

"Eh," Elery summarized her thoughts on the matter with a thoroughly uncaring shrug. "Blame the old UN. They sealed your fates when they attacked Brother's soldiers. I mean, if there was a war going on, then fair enough, but that's not something you do when you aren't at war or you're not trying to start one. You humans got off lucky. I would have just blown up most of the planet and conquered whatever was left." Brother really did think too much in the short term.

They were going to live for thousands of years if something didn't kill them. Brother was going to live for like a million. He really was making more work for himself by treating humans with… what was the phrase…? Kids gloves? In a thousand years, how many humans would care that he had blown up a lot of their cities and people when they had newer and better cities that they were living in?

Javier sneered, "Are all of you Saiyans so bloodthirsty?!" He snapped at her, his hands curling into fists.

"Yeah," Elery admitted with a nod. "Most of us, at least. Something that you need to get is that Brother is the most reasonable out of all of us. He's the kindest. And he's still devastated millions of planets and most of the galaxy," Elery stated in no uncertain terms, taking a threatening step forward. "So, I want you to keep that in mind when you tell him he's a liar and complain that he didn't hold your hands and tell you everything was going to be okay when his soldiers were attacked. You're an idiot, Javier, but at the very least, you are brave."

Javier didn't seem to know if he should take the compliment or act indignant, but Elery decided that she didn't care enough to find out.

Using her ki, she formed a bubble around her meal and took off, heading in the direction of the titan tower. Brother would be annoyed at her for going off on that human, but it needed to be said. Brother wasn't explaining what he could have done, what he normally would do, to put things in perspective. Humans were getting special treatment, and complaining that it wasn't special enough.

Now that they were within city limits, it didn't take her long to arrive at the Tower. It still spotted some signs of damage from the fight -- both from when Brother arrived, and passive damage that could be seen across the world when he had fought Earth's heroes and villains. The island the tower stood on was worn and sporting craters, the lower levels of the tower showing signs of impact. Elery landed at the top of the tower before stepping into the elevator and going to the main floor.

The living room reminded Elery of the command deck of a warship -- mostly because of the large screen thing that took up most of the far wall that Robin was pouring over. Kori perked up when the doors opened, giving her a wide beaming smile, "Elery! Did you bring lunch? How gracious of you!"

"Er," Elery started, going to move to protect her second lunch, but Kori's smile didn't waver. "I… sure… yeah. I brought lunch… dig in, I guess…" she trailed off, looking away from Kori's beaming smile. Kori was just so… nice. The kind of nice that Elery had trouble dealing with. Why couldn't she act like a Saiyan and challenge her for the food?

"What do you want?" Robin questioned, not looking away from the screen. He didn't seem surprised that she was here. He probably knew the moment they set off.

Elery set the feast onto one of the tables and Kori began to crack open a Saiyan serving size jar of mustard, striding forward with her hands casually tucked behind her head, "I was bored."

"So you are here for the hanging out?" Kori questioned, earning a shrug.

"Nah -- I'm looking for bad guys for me and my team to fight, but they're all avoiding us." Elery pointed out, earning a scoff from Robin.

"Of course they are," Robin responded, not at all surprised. "You're Tarble's sister. If anything happens to you, he'll throw the planet into the sun with everyone still on it." That… sounded like something he would do, much to her chagrin.

"Seriously?" It wasn't because they were all incredibly strong? They were avoiding her because of Brother? It was times like this that she almost wished that she and Brother weren't siblings. Mom had once told her about having to deal with the fact that she would always be in her brother's shadow. He had simply accomplished too much -- he won the war, he was super strong, he was King, and the Legendary Super Saiyan.

And Elery never really cared about that. She couldn't. Not when she saw how much it had hurt Other Brother, who Tarble had surpassed to the point that King Vegeta chose him to become king. However, it was moments like these that Brother's shadow was so long and deep that it chased off others.

With a shake of her head, Elery threw herself into the couch as Kori began to sort through boxes. "It will be unlikely we can help you in your request in any case," Kori started, making Elery perk up at that. Robin glanced over his shoulder like that was supposed to be a secret.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Elery questioned sitting up, seeing a notice on the  screen that the rest of her team had finally arrived.

Robin didn't answer for a moment in favor of directing her team to them before they started knocking down walls. "When Tarble took over Earth, things got quiet when it came to villains. Sure, there was looting, but as far as actual villains, they all went to ground."

"Because they were scared," Elery voiced, earning a pause and a nod from Robin.

"That's the most likely scenario. However, something feels off. Things are way too quiet. Some villains just can't help themselves when it comes to breaking the law -- some of it is some sort of need, or a lack of self control, or a lack of respect for the law. I expected by now that some of them would be poking their heads out, but they aren't." Robin explained, his tone deadly serious. There was frustration there. He was worried.

Elery knew she was a free spirit. And sometimes a little too carefree. Still, she tensed at how Robin spoke. A human he might be, but Robin was probably one of the greatest examples of humanity. Robin continued without missing a beat, "I expected change when we got back to Earth. I mean, laws are going to be different, and so on, but all there's been is radio silence from villains I know can't go a week without making a scene when they're out of prison. Something has changed and I don't know what it is."

Kori helped herself to something called a burrito while Elery grabbed something called a quesadilla. "Just because something changed doesn't mean it's the worst case scenario," she pointed out, chewing thoroughly while her team finally arrived.

"We don't have the luxury of assuming anything but," was Robin's quick response. Kori greeted her team warmly. Olaive and Kakarot were a bit standoffish, but Broly returned Kori's greeting full force.

Elery leaned over the back of the couch, "The bad guys are hiding from everyone." She informed, making Olaive groan as she threw herself over the couch, a hand reaching for her food, only to be stopped cold by a hand on her wrist. Their eyes met and Elery's eyes narrowed as a warning. Olaive got the message and pouted, though the point was undercut when Kori offered to share.

"So, is there anything actually interesting on Earth? I'd rather go back to the border and see if I can get the Federation to shoot at me," Olaive groused unhappily through a mouth full of burrito.

"Feel free to take the rest of the Saiyans," Robin remarked. "Never thought I would say this but Tarble is the most reasonable out of all of you," he remarked when an alert popped up of a Saiyan picking up a food stall and just flying off with it. Another of a Saiyan playing some kind of instrument that produced terrible sounds before getting pissed off at people who weren't tipping him in food. Another touched down in one of the 'countries' in the world during some big speech about how all the Saiyans and aliens needed to die and so on.

It concluded with the Saiyan mocking them to get respectable jobs like being soldiers or line cooks. Then wrecking the stage and flying away with some mocking parting words.

"I'm almost glad that the villains are completely silent. I don't know if Earth could take them and all of you," Robin pointed out while Kori let out a chuckle.

"Ahh… sorry for the trouble that we caused," Broly said, offering a bow of his head. Robin stiffened, not expecting nor knowing what to do with the sudden apology.

"It's… fine. I was just complaining. In any case, it's a lot better than any of us expected," Robin switched tact. The little distraction was nice, but it also didn't solve her immediate problem -- boredom.

Should they go find Tarble? Maybe he would have something for them to do? A mission? Just something to do because Earth was proving way more boring than expected. Even the food wasn't good enough of a reason to stay. And the food was delicious!

Then, as if to answer her prayers, the door to the living room opened. Elery leaned back her head and immediately caught sight of Raven. Elery narrowed her eyes ever so slightly at the faintly gray woman. Raven's dark violet eyes flickered to her, her expression not so much as twitching as she continued into the room.

Raven was becoming a point of interest for Elery. She was someone that had entered Brother's orbit recently -- something that Every wasn't used to happening. The people that could claim the same had all been the 501st, or a Saiyan, or Ada'la. She grew up with them. She hadn't with Raven. All the same, people were looking to her when it came to advice or information about Brother. Worse, Raven had answers.

It didn't sit well with Elery. She would think that the two were fucking or something, but they weren't fighting. Kara was doing a better job of trying to woo her brother, yet Raven seemed to get along with Brother better. It was weird. Not bad, not good, but just so unusual that Elery didn't have a way to describe Raven other than weird.

"We," Raven began, "may have a problem."

"Is it a punching problem or a talking problem? You're on your own for the second one," Kakarot questioned, he and Olaive perking up.

"One of my wards was tripped in London," Raven informed, turning to Robin. "A magical mirror  made by a sprite in England during the medieval ages . The magic in it dissipated centuries ago, so it was just a normal mirror, but given what it was, I decided to be safe and ward it. It was just stolen," Raven explained, casting an illusion that displayed the self standing full length mirror.

Robin frowned but it was Kori that spoke, "What did it do in the past?" She questioned, and that was when Raven frowned.

"It was a portal to another plane of existence," Raven began, pushing back her head and despite her even expression, there was sorrow in her eyes. "Azarath. My home."

Kori went still, earning a glance from Elery. Robin was the one that gave her a clue why, "But it was…"

"Destroyed," Raven answered. "Meaning that someone doesn't know that and they're in danger of falling into a void… or they do and they're going anyway."

Details details. That didn't really matter.

Elery gave Raven a broad smile, "You had me at another plane of existence! Of course, we'll help!" Olaive cheered, overjoyed that they had something to do now and shared a high five.

Because of that, neither of them noticed the deeply concerned expression on Raven's face.