|
|
"Vegeta, this is a great planet!" Nappa's scouter was beeping like crazy as he kept running through readings, clearly convinced they had a real find. "Class M, single G, atmospheric nitrogen levels non-toxic for most species, multiple biomes -- this is worth an absolute fortune!"
Vegeta glanced at Zarbon, flying next to him with his arms outstretched. There was a frown of concentration creasing the alien's forehead. Zarbon was completely focused on locating Radditz's pod, paying no attention to his Saiyan companions or to the extraneous readings his own scouter was feeding him. "There," he said suddenly, sweeping an arm forward. "Just beyond those peaks."
"He's not going to be there," Vegeta reminded him.
"We may be able to figure out what happened to him, though."
"What does it matter what happened to one of the soldiers?" demanded Nappa. "Let's just make artificial moonlight and clear this place out. This planet is too nice to pockmark with battle scars."
Nappa had a point, thought Vegeta, smiling at Zarbon's faint scowl. But he was bored and restless, and there hadn't been a good fight with anyone other than Zarbon for months. "If there are warriors here, I want to see them first," he told Nappa. "If they're worthy, we might have a battle to remember. If not;" the Prince raised a palm upwards, dismissively, "well, you can go oozaru to your heart's content, and Zarbon and I will just head back to the ship and have our own little battle."
A wry wince flicked across Zarbon's face at that. It was chased away by an alert, intense expression. "There's the landing crater." He pointed to a wide meadow marked with a deep, recent depression.
Vegeta noted scorch marks disfiguring several grassy areas as the three pulled up and hovered near the crater's lip. There had been a battle here, one involving ki. "Excellent," he said softly, beginning to feel a twinge of excitement. He grinned at Zarbon, derisively. "Let's see how many pieces of Radditz we can find."
Zarbon's eyes narrowed in response. Vegeta was sure only Nappa's presence prevented one of those politely-worded blistering replies Zarbon specialized in. Ah, if only you had even limited psychic abilities, he thought at Zarbon, what you could say to me now! But, as ever, there was no echo of a reply, and Zarbon's stare was becoming slightly perplexed as Vegeta continued to look at him. Breaking eye contact, the Prince nodded his head at the crater and the three started to lower into it.
"No pod." Nappa reported the obvious, his tone baffled.
"What's your reading?" Vegeta asked, glancing at his trainer. The alien peered around the vacated pit through his scouter, frowning; Vegeta could see symbols crossing the lens, insisting something was there.
Comprehension suddenly flared across Zarbon's face. "Trap," he bit out, tersely.
Without further words the three scattered. Hardly had Vegeta reached the edge of the crater when he heard the crackle of incoming ki rip past him, and an explosion obliterated Radditz's landing spot. Glancing up, he could see two figures hovering over them.
It was an instant before he realized they had somehow gotten close enough to fire a ki blast without either his seventh sense or the others' scouters picking it up.
Bulma knew she had made a potentially fatal mistake almost as soon as she skidded to a halt inside the sickroom. The smell of ozone hit her nostrils; widened eyes took in seared sentries, twisted medical equipment. Radditz was leaning against the far wall, both hands pressed against it, drawing in hard breaths; his head was lowered, the thick hair her mother tied back so carefully spilling over one shoulder, shadowing his face.
Then he raised dark eyes and fixed them on her, and she was sure she was dead.
"He's here," he said, quietly. "They're here."
Say something, Bulma ordered her terrified vocal cords. They came out with, "We know. You can't help them."
His lips pulled back into a terrible smile. "Oh, can't I?" queried the Saiyan in a soft, fell voice. He pushed away from the wall, and suddenly he was directly in front of her.
He swiped at her. She saw it coming. Years of being on the receiving end of such blows made her relax her body, bend her knees, sway back out of the way as much as possible and his knuckles only glanced against her collarbones. But she forgot that he had the same inhuman strength Goku possessed, and the bare touch sent her flying against the wall next to the door with more force than anything she had experienced in a decade.
Squinting through the disorientation of ringing ears, she saw him cover his upper breast with one hand, his face contorted. Good, that hurt him, maybe more than it hurt me! But he was not quite down. He staggered to the door.
As if in a horror of slow motion, Bulma heard her mother shout. "GET BACK IN THAT BED THIS INSTANT, YOUNG MAN!"
"Good shot, Chaozu," said Tenshin. "That got their attention." He frowned, studying the invaders, the third eye centered in his forehead widened to take in every aspect of their living essences. He took in a sudden breath.
"What?" asked Chaozu.
"I know what Goku said about the way his brother felt," replied Tenshin. "But how they look--their auras are blood-drenched, Chaozu. They reek of death. They're horrible. They're beyond evil."
They're beyond us, thought Chaozu, feeling the frightening impressions of kis that far outdistanced his own. But we're just here to annoy them until Goku gets out of the Room of Space and Time.
He appeared massive enough on the bed, which was the only way Mrs. Briefs had ever seen him. But with one arm braced for support against the door frame, the still-gaping chest wound oozing fluids, his wiry hair filling her vision, his head bowed to glare into her face and his lips pulled back in an inhuman snarl, he seemed more than just immense. He seemed wild.
Mrs. Briefs, however, had years of dealing with an out-of-control teenager who used to disappear for weeks with Goku and Yamcha, returning with impossible tales of defeated world conquerors, immortal beasts and conversations with God. She could handle wild. Putting her hands on her hips, she glared back. "I mean it! You are not well enough to be up and about!"
The fierce stare slowly faded, to be replaced by the familiar puzzled frown. He reached one hand toward her.
There was a dull-sounding thunking noise. He stumbled slightly, his fingers just brushing past Mrs. Brief's arm, and turned his head. Through a gap in the thick strands of hair Mrs. Briefs could see just enough of her daughter to realize the chair she was holding by its back off the floor was not for the patient to sit in.
"Bulma, stop hitting him, you're going to hurt him!"
"He was going to kill you. Mom, he isn't down yet, look out!"
Bulma was clearly hysterical. And she was so level headed most of the time...well, some of the time...well, at board meetings, when she bothered to show up... Mrs. Briefs wedged herself in the doorway, holding one arm in front of the patient, almost buried in his mane. "Put the chair down, Bulma! He's not going to hurt me, and he isn't well enough to go anywhere. Help me get him back into bed!"
There was a strange tortured wheezing sound from the patient. He slowly slid down the door frame, his eyes twisted closed, his hands pressed over the hole in his chest with dark liquid oozing between his fingers. Mrs. Briefs looked at him in alarm, but--
"What the hell are you laughing about?!" screamed Bulma.
For the first time, Mrs. Briefs heard the young man speak. "You are an insane breed of people," he rasped in a low, husky voice. "Insane!" Then he keeled over.
"He's passed out," murmured Bulma, relief in her voice.
"He's passed out!" Mrs. Briefs gasped at the same moment. She reached down, tried to tug on his shoulder, and nearly fell over herself. "My, he's ... solid, isn't he? Bulma, stop standing there, help me get him back into bed!"
They regrouped on the north side of the crater, floating three across with Vegeta in the middle as they studied the challengers. The Prince needed to look twice before he realized his perspective wasn't off. One of the natives was grotesquely smaller than the other one, with pasty white skin and bright red circles on his cheeks that looked as if they were rouged on.
"Aw, isn't it cute? Look, Vegeta; they sent a toy to face us!"
They sent things that fly without ki, thought Vegeta, frowning. How is that possible?
Zarbon looked through his scouter, and sighed. "Fighting levels under 200. Barely worth our time."
Vegeta stared at him, wondering what the scouter could be picking up when his own senses were registering near-zero ki levels. And yet -- they could fly...
"You want to frolic with the locals, little girl?" Nappa asked Zarbon, smiling cruelly.
"I never played with dolls," was the cold retort. "Definitely more suited to your style, Commander."
Nappa looked at the Prince to make sure Vegeta didn't want the battle; still frowning, he shook his head. Nappa charged up, grinning savagely, and crossed the crater to face the natives. Vegeta began to concentrate on his extra sense, stretching it, testing it, wondering what could have happened to make it shut down.
"Sorry, Vegeta. I was hoping for a challenge for you."
Something flamed across his mind before snuffing out again. Vegeta's eyes narrowed; there had been a brief impression of an Elite level power. Had he tapped into Nappa's ki, or were the natives more than they seemed? "Don't write them off yet," he told Zarbon.
Anything? Tenshin mentally asked him.
I can't read them, Chaozu thought back, beginning to feel as if he should have "USELESS" stamped across his chalk-white forehead. His ki skills weren't formidable, and if he couldn't use his psychic abilities to reach into and twist the minds of the modern Saiyans as he had the ancient ones in the Room of Space and Time, then he had nothing to offer in the upcoming battle. The Saiyans have mental barriers in place, he told Tenshin, and the blue one--he isn't the same as the other two. There's something very different about the way his mind is wired.
Don't worry about it, responded Tenshin, kindly, although his face was hard and set as he watched one of the Saiyans separate from the group and fly toward them. Chaozu looked at the approaching alien and had to bite back a whimper; he was big, as big as Tenshin himself. The feeling of power perverted whipped ahead him, forcing Chaozu to fling up mind shields he rarely used just to keep his own thoughts level and untainted. Yes, very, very bad vibes, Tenshin agreed. Although he is the lesser power of the three, he may well be the most evil.
Chaozu looked at the two motionless figures on the far side of the crater and opened his mind to them, just a little. He quickly threw the shields back into place and thought to Tenshin-Han, That's not saying much.
You're right, of course. Evil is evil. But I'm not just going to start swinging blindly without at least trying to open a dialogue.
One of the natives raised a hand as he approached. Ah, they want to parlay! thought Nappa. How funny. How futile. He pulled up, smirking at his opponents. The man facing him was big and muscular, although his ki reading was depressingly insignificant. He wore loose fitting green garments that left one shoulder and part of his chest bare; a deep scar was set obliquely across his breast, disappearing under his clothes. Two oval eyes were set deep in his humanoid face with a misshapen third one in the middle of his forehead. "We don't need to fight," he said, his voice marked with an accent Nappa had never heard before.
Nappa shrugged his big shoulders. "You want to die without fighting, no problem. Kinda disappointing, mind you, but I'm happy to oblige."
The little one spoke, its tone high-pitched and clear. "Why are you doing this? What's the point?"
"Point?" Nappa roared with laughter. "We're Saiyans; this is what we do!"
The perfectly-round eyes stared at him. With annoying shrewdness, "That one isn't Saiyan," said the one that looked like a toy, stubby arm indicating the distant, silent Zarbon. "He's more than Saiyan. He's much more than you."
Nappa snarled, hard, tense lines crossing his face. One fist whipping forward, he pitched a ki sphere at the white figure; it yelped and threw its arms out, alarm frozen on its features. A big hand shot out. The figure in green stuck his palm in front of the doll and smacked the ball of energy away. It arced over the crater and the two watchers, impacting a distant mountainside and sending up a thin wisp of debris and smoke.
"Stay behind me," he told the doll, who promptly retreated. Folding his arms, he stared back at the Commander, cool confidence in his gaze. "You ready to get serious," he asked, "or are you just going to throw powder puffs all day?"
Nappa's snarl began to morph into a wide-mouthed smirk. "Oh, I'll get serious," he promised. "Try this!" Separating his lips as far as he could, he spit a solid cylinder of ki at the man. It hit hard; there was a satisfying eruption of energy mixed with fluttering strips of green cloth.
Lowering burned, crossed arms, the native looked back impassively. The strike burned off the top of his garments; the chest was completely bare now, patched with the red of blistering skin. "So," he said, softly. Then his hands came together in front of him, and Nappa found himself facing a powerful ki ball; more powerful, really, than the native's low ki level should permit him to produce. Dodging, Nappa felt the fire of the passage, felt the backlash of the explosion behind him. He knew a moment of regret that the planet's value would suffer as the result of this contest, but the heat of battle was on him now, and no Saiyan cared about mundane things like profit when the fighting was good.
How boorish, thought Vegeta in distaste. Then he started chuckling. "Zarbon," he murmured to his aide, "you've spoiled me for anyone else."
The alien's head jerked back as if he had been struck. Zarbon turned surprised eyes to him, his brows pulled together. "Vegeta," he said after a minute, "I have to point out I have never touched you except to beat the living daylights out of you."
That was not precisely true; Zarbon was full of little touches that he didn't even notice, which considering how he jumped out of his blue skin if Vegeta ever touched him was amusing enough; but Vegeta sighed and shook his head. "Let's see; you feed me bizarre alien meals, you make me research planetary races before I exterminate them, and you're always dragging me off to Associate Worlds to look at what they consider culture. And I was just floating here watching Nappa use a damn effective mouth ki blast in the non-transformed state thinking--ick. That's disgusting. Do you have any concept of how non-Saiyan a thought like that is?"
Zarbon's mouth quirked. "Curses, Vegeta," he said, solemnly. "You've finally discovered my true mission. I'm here to destroy the Saiyan race by teaching manners to their prince. I suppose I have to call Freeza and tell him the gig is up now."
"Baka," murmured Vegeta, approvingly. They both returned their gazes to the uneven contest unfolding before them.
I'm better than he is, technically, Tenshin thought after a flurry of fast-paced blows ended with most of his impacting against the meaty face. But he's so strong, he can hardly feel me...
The Saiyan drew one hand across his mouth, erasing the speck of blood from the one tiny injury Tenshin had managed to inflict on him with all of his landed punches. He grinned at Tenshin, clearly enjoying himself.
It's come to this, thought Tenshin, barely evading another ki blast. I don't have enough raw power to fight this monster head on, not even with my multi-form technique. But I can take him down, and the others will have a better shot with just two remaining...
He templed his fingers, holding them in front of his body, blocking out Chaozu's psychic protest as he tapped into his own life-force and began to direct life energy into the channel between his hands. " Kikou," he chanted, feeling the discharge of power start, then the drag of draining life as he went beyond the point of no return. He thrust his arms out straight, framing the Saiyan between his fingers, and screamed the final part of the attack, "Hou!"
The power build-up was sudden, massive, devastating. Zarbon gasped at the numbers flaring across his scouter. Vegeta felt his eyes widen as the sense of an unexpectedly high ki level struck him again. Nappa, he thought at the Commander, get the hell away!
Nappa's head flailed around as he looked toward Vegeta. "Idiot!" Vegeta screamed out loud. "Move it now!"
A triangular beam ripped from between the native's hands as ki and something more than ki formed a powerful mixture keyed on to the Saiyan. Nappa stared transfixed before suddenly flickering out of sight; the explosion hit close and for a moment none of the watchers could see what had happened through the billowing clouds of dust and dissipated energy.
"Brain synapses of a slug," muttered Zarbon, scornfully. His head tilted as something vicious and angry-sounding spat from the scouter's earpiece. He continued in a polite, cool, eat-dirt tone. "Oh, sorry; did you hear that, Commander? I meant some other slug, of course."
"Zarbon," chided Vegeta, one side of his mouth sliding up.
Through the smoke of the impact a large, shadowy figure appeared, slowly levitating until it was above the debris cloud. Nappa's face was contorted in fury as he glared up at the Chikyuu native. One side of his face was scuffed from the blast; blood ran down an arm suddenly devoid of a shoulder guard. Vegeta looked at the native; the man was slumped in mid-air, his own face pulled into lines of pain, his ki plain to him now and nearly half what it had just been. "Sacrifice attack," the Prince said. "What a waste." Although why does he suddenly have Elite level ki?
"Well, if you're going to die anyway..." Zarbon pointed out.
"If he killed Nappa, I was going to take him on. But if he's just going to kill himself instead of letting me do it," Vegeta's shoulders raised, "no point."
"Nappa should be able to take him out without any problem now," said Zarbon, unemotionally. Then he stared, and his bright smile flashed. "Oh, I don't believe it! The little doll decides to participate."
Floating in front of the drained man in green was the tiny white-faced figure, its absurd round face set in determined lines. Across the crater, Vegeta heard Nappa's rolling laugh; the Commander charged up and streaked toward the two.
White hands went up on either side of the white face; the white fingers spread wide. "Taiyo-ken!" screamed the midget.
Suddenly all Vegeta saw was white.
It took a while and the aid of robots usually used for lifting cargo, but Radditz was finally once more ensconced in bed. Dr. Briefs made noises of wonder and interest as he surveyed the damage to the medical equipment, beginning to pull wires back into shape and resplice connections. "Amazing," he said. "It's amazing what these young people can do, sometimes."
Mrs. Briefs hovered over the bed, looking at the patient, at the silent machines that needed to be working to repair the damage he had just inflicted upon himself. "Should we be fixing the respirator?"
"He's breathing, isn't he?"
"Yes, but--"
"Then let me finish this first."
She looked at her husband's back in consternation, then felt a touch on her hand. Looking down, she saw the patient had placed his thick fingers gently over hers on the sheet. His voice barely audible, he husked, "You will die with honor."
Mrs. Briefs blinked. That sounded like a vow. A very strange, disturbing one, but a vow none-the-less. After considering and rejecting several responses, she settled for, "Thank you."
The corner of his mouth flexed, then his eyes closed again.
Got the wretches, he thought. "Let's go," Chaozu said to Tenshin, urgently.
Tenshin-Han had been as caught off guard as the others by the unexpected blinding light. His hands covering all of his eyes, "But we have him on the ropes...!" Tenshin protested.
Chaozu regarded the twisting, screaming Nappa; he was flailing at nothing, cursing and pledging vengeance as soon as he could see again. "We do not. By the time you get powered up again, he'll be fully functional. And you will end up killing yourself, which is just what Kami-sama didn't want to happen. It's time for the next wave. We've done as much as we can here, Ten. We're going to be needed later." Latching on to Tenshin's arm, Chaozu charged up and headed back for Heaven's platform.
He felt the touch of Tenshin's mind, heard the other man chuckling mentally. I have the solar flare attack copyrighted, you know. You owe me a zeni.
Remind me to get my wallet out when we get home, Chaozu thought back, smiling.
"Vegeta!" he heard Zarbon's concerned voice. "Are you all right?"
Squinting, snarling, Vegeta slitted his lids, just barely able to make his trainer out, and gasped. "Zarbon, that thing fried your eyes!"
Zarbon blinked, and something pale and opaque slid away from his eyeballs and back under his lids. "You mammals," he sighed. "You are so underprepared."
Vegeta said, pleasantly, "Zarbon, some day I will broil you and see just how much like fowl you really taste."
"Clearly teaching you the finer points of epicure was a mistake," murmured Zarbon. Then Vegeta heard the beeping from Zarbon's scouter; Zarbon's head made a graceful tilt. "There's another," he said in surprise. "Very close." Even with his blurred vision, Vegeta could see his aide's face hardening into sharp lines in anticipation of battle. "Since Nappa's still writhing around screaming about his sight, I think I'll take this one," Zarbon said.
Read The Chikyuu Contaminant: Chapter Eleven
Return to Vejiitasei Ascendant
 |
|
