The air in Hangar 4 was thick enough to chew on. It was a heavy, suffocating blend of pressurized coolant, burnt fuel, and the palpable, vibrating tension of a squad about to launch into the void.
"Final checks!" Overseer Toz's replacement, a nervous Saiyan named Brel, shouted from the catwalk. "Fuel lines detached! Navigation locked! Launch cycle in T minus five!"
I stood by my pod, Unit 5. It was the furthest from the blast doors, the runt of the litter. My hand rested on the cold, white hull. I could feel the hum of the engine idling inside, a dormant beast waiting to scream.
"Hey."
I didn't need to turn to know who it was.
Ruca stopped beside me. She was fully geared up, her helmet tucked under her arm. Her hair was pulled back tight, exposing the sharp angles of her face. She looked focused, dangerous, and alive.
She looked at me, expecting the partner she had forged in the dark of the Blind Spot. She expected the co-conspirator who had shared the secret of the King's treachery.
"Three weeks goes by fast," she said, her voice low enough that Nappa, who was currently shouting obscenities at a fueling drone, couldn't hear.
"It does," I replied, keeping my eyes on the pod.
"You ready?" she asked. "Planet Meat isn't a sparring match. The locals... they don't stop coming."
I turned to her then. I plastered the mask onto my face. It was a seamless transition, a muscle memory honed by years of surviving on this planet. I softened my eyes. I let a small, nervous, but determined smile touch my lips.
"I'm as ready as I can be," I lied. "Thanks to you."
Ruca's expression softened. She punched me lightly on the shoulder. It was a gesture of camaraderie. A gesture of friendship.
"Don't thank me yet," she grinned, her tail flickering with anticipation. "Thank me when we're standing on a pile of corpses and the King Cold's Force pickup crew is handing us our pay."
"Right," I said. "Legends."
"Legends," she agreed.
She held my gaze for a second longer, searching for something. But then Zuto shouted from across the bay. "Hey, Princess! Unless you want to walk to the Outer Rim, get in the ball!"
Ruca rolled her eyes. "See you on the ground, Cress. Stick close to me."
"I will," I promised.
I watched her walk away, her boots clicking confidently on the metal deck.
As soon as her back was turned, the smile vanished from my face like smoke in a gale.
Stick close to you, I thought, the bitterness coating my tongue. So you can be entertained? So you can watch the Low Class struggle and bleed for your amusement?
I was going to do exactly that if my life was in danger. I'll properly use you as a shield.
"Launch in two minutes!" Brel screamed.
I climbed into the pod.
The interior was cramped. It smelled of recycled air and synthetic leather. I settled into the seat, the impact absorbing foam molding to my back. The harness clicked over my chest, locking me in tight.
The hatch hissed shut above me.
The world outside, the hangar, the squad, the politics, was cut off. There was only the glow of the instrument panel and the darkness of the viewport.
"Sequence initiated," the computer's automated voice droned.
I felt the ship lift. The anti-gravity thrusters engaged.
Then, the main drive kicked in.
It wasn't a push; it was a kick. The G-force slammed me back into the seat, compressing my lungs. The stars outside the viewport streaked into lines of white fire.
I closed my eyes.
The long sleep had begun.
Space travel in an Attack Ball was a unique form of torture.
It wasn't the danger that got to you. It was the boredom. The pod was essentially a hibernation chamber, designed to keep a soldier alive and sane for weeks of transit. You could sleep, you could eat the nutrient paste the machine dispensed, and you could stare at the endless void.
For the first three days, I slept. My body needed the rest. The weeks of brutal training with Ruca had pushed me to the limit, and I needed to let my body recover.
By day four, I was awake. And I was restless.
I was trapped in a metal sphere no bigger than a closet. I couldn't do pushups. I couldn't practice the Kienzan. I couldn't even stand up.
"Status," I commanded the computer.
"Arrival at Planet Meat in seventeen standard days," the machine replied.
Seventeen days.
I groaned, shifting in the seat. Seventeen days of atrophy. Seventeen days of my muscles softening while my enemies got stronger.
"I can't waste this," I whispered.
I remembered something. Image Training. Mentally simulated combat.
Piccolo did it. Gohan did it.Goku did it. It was the ability to project a mental opponent so vividly that your brain couldn't distinguish it from reality.
"Okay," I muttered, closing my eyes. "Let's try it."
I focused on the darkness behind my eyelids.
Construct the enemy.
I tried to visualize the Hunter from Arlia 4. The four eyes. The blue skin. The massive sword.
Appear.
A blurry, grey shape formed in my mind. It looked like a smudge of static. It swung a sword that looked like a pool noodle.
I tried to dodge. My physical body twitched in the harness.
The image dissolved.
"Dammit," I hissed.
It was harder than it looked. It wasn't just imagination. It required total sensory recall. I had to remember the smell of the Hunter, the displacement of the air, the killing intent.
I tried again. And again.
For a week, I sat in the dark, straining until my head pounded.
I tried to conjure Ruca. I tried to conjure Nappa.
Every time, the image would hold for a second, then shatter as soon as I tried to interact with it. It was like trying to hold water in a sieve. My brain knew it was fake.
"Useless,"opening my eyes to stare at the passing stars.
Maybe I didn't have the aptitude for it. Maybe my human soul was the problem.
Days bled into weeks. The isolation began to gnaw at me. I stopped checking the timer. I just floated in the suspension of the pod, drifting between waking and sleeping, my mind a fog of frustration.
Then, the tone sounded.
"Proximity Alert," the computer chimed, jarring me from a light doze. "Entering Planet Meat orbital gravity well. Atmospheric entry in T-minus two minutes."
Two minutes.
My heart spiked. Adrenaline flooded my system. The lethargy vanished instantly.
I was about to land in a warzone.
I closed my eyes, taking one last deep breath to center myself before the violence began.
And in that moment, in the space between panic and focus, something clicked.
The stress unlocked the door.
I didn't try to force an image. I just let the adrenaline paint the picture.
Ruca.
She was there.
She wasn't a grey smudge. She was standing in the darkness of my mind, vivid and terrifying. I could see the scratch on her pauldron. I could smell her armor. I could feel the heat radiating from her skin.
She grinned, that shark like smile she gave me in the Blind Spot.
Found you, the mental construct whispered.
She threw a punch.
It wasn't a memory. It was happening now.
My brain screamed DANGER.
In the cramped pod, my physical arm shot up.
Bam.
I felt it.
I felt the impact on my forearm. A jolt of phantom pain shot up my nerve endings, real enough to make me wince. I had blocked it.
I countered, throwing a mental jab. It connected with her jaw. I felt the resistance of bone and muscle.
"I did it," I gasped, my eyes snapping open.
I had successfully engaged in Image Training. I had fought a ghost and felt it.
Then, the ship shook violently.
"Atmospheric entry engaged," the computer blared. "Brace for impact."
The pod began to spin. The viewport turned a searing, blinding red as the heat shields hit the atmosphere.
"Great timing," I muttered, gripping the armrests.
I had finally unlocked the ultimate training tool, the ability to get stronger while sitting still, literally two minutes before I had to fight for my life.
The irony would have been funny if I wasn't about to be turned into paste.
The descent was violent.
This wasn't the smooth, 'controlled' landing of the transport ship on Arlia. This was a ballistic drop. The Attack Ball was essentially a meteor with a seatbelt.
Through the red haze of the viewport, the clouds parted.
Planet Meat.
The sky was a bruised purple, choked with thick, oily smoke that blotted out the sun. The terrain below was a nightmare of jagged, volcanic rock and vast mud flats that looked like open sores on the planet's surface.
My Scouter, which I had calibrated to passively scan during descent, lit up.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"Data," I commanded.
The map overlay appeared on the glass.
Five green dots, our squad, were plummeting toward the surface.
Red dots began to populate the map.
Ten. Fifty. Five hundred. Two thousand.
"Holy..." I whispered.
The red dots weren't scattered. They were clustered in a massive, dense hive directly below us.
I zoomed out on the map.
Usually, a tactical insertion dropped squads on the periphery of a target zone. You landed in the quiet areas, regrouped, and then pushed inward. That was basic military strategy. Flank. Encircle. Destroy.
But our trajectory wasn't aiming for the outskirts.
We were aiming for the bullseye.
"Coordinates verified," the computer stated. "Target Zone: Central Fortress. Enemy Density: Maximum."
My blood ran cold.
King Vegeta hadn't just sent us to the front lines. He had manipulated the drop coordinates to slam us directly into the heart of the enemy stronghold. He had dropped five Saiyans into a blender filled with thousands of enemies.
He wasn't just trying to kill me. He was sacrificing Nappa, Zuto, Toma, and Ruca just to make sure I didn't walk away.
"Collateral damage," I realized, the words tasting like ash. "He really meant it."
I looked at the altimeter.
5,000 feet. 2,000 feet.
"Impact in five... four..."
I braced myself for the impact.
"Three... two... one."
CRASH.
The world ended in a thunderclap of noise and earth.
The pod slammed into the ground with enough force to shatter bedrock. I was thrown forward against the harness, the breath driven from my lungs. The pod bounced, spun wildly, crushing rock and mud, before slamming into a crater wall and coming to a halt.
Steam hissed. The red lights flickered and died, replaced by the amber emergency glow.
Silence.
For a second, there was only the ringing in my ears.
Then, the explosive bolts on the hatch detonated.
Bang!
The door flew off, spinning into the smoke.
The sounds of Planet Meat rushed in.
It was a cacophony of war.
Explosions rumbled like constant thunder. Energy blasts shrieked through the air. And underneath it all, a guttural, insectoid roaring that sounded like a million angry hornets.
I unbuckled my harness and scrambled out of the smoking crater.
My boots sank into the mud. It was thick, grey, and smelled of sulfur and rotting vegetation.
I looked around.
Fifty meters away, Nappa's pod was already open. The giant Saiyan was standing on the hull of his ship, laughing.
"Finally!" Nappa roared, his voice booming over the din. "Fresh meat!"
He raised his hand. A massive column of yellow energy erupted from his palm, vaporizing a watchtower on the wall. Debris rained down.
Zuto and Toma were already out, firing wild blasts into the smoke, cackling like maniacs.
Ruca emerged from her pod to my left. She didn't laugh. She scanned the perimeter, her body low, her tail lashing.
I extended my senses.
I almost vomited.
The Ki signatures hit me like a physical wave. It was suffocating.
They were everywhere.
Above.
I looked up.
The smoke swirled.
Hundreds of figures approached.
The Meatans.
They were humanoid, but barely. They had thick, reddish skin that looked like wet clay. Their limbs were too long, jointed strangely, and their faces were featureless masks save for a single, glowing vertical slit where eyes should be.
And they were strong.
From Around 500 to 900.
Individually, they were fodder for Nappa. But there were hundreds of them. And they were coordinated.
"Ambush!" Ruca shouted, firing a blast at a Meatan diving toward her.
"Let them come!" Nappa bellowed. "I'll crush every single one of them!"
He launched himself into the swarm, a wrecking ball of violence.
I stood near my pod, trying to get my bearings.
I was the smallest target.
The Meatans weren't stupid. They were predators.
A group of twelve broke off from the main swarm. They ignored Nappa. They ignored the loud, blasting Zuto.
They turned their glowing slits toward me.
They sensed the weak link.
"Target acquired," one of them clicked, its voice a horrific, wet sound.
They dove.
I stood in the mud, the rain beginning to fall, a hot, greasy rain that stained the armor.
Twelve enemies.
If I flared to 1,200, I would survive the first wave, but I would attract more attention.
I looked at the incoming squad.
"Time to go to work," I whispered.
I dropped into a stance. I dropped low, fingers touching the mud.
The first Meatan reached me, a spear in its hand.
It thrust the spear at my chest.
I didn't block.
I moved.
The spear tip grazed the air where my throat had been a millisecond before.
I didn't back away. Backing away invited the swarm.
I stepped in.
I ducked under the Meatan's massive, clay colored arm. Up close, they smelled like wet earth. Their weapons, jagged spears and heavy maces, weren't glowing with pure Ki, but they hummed with a strange, violet static. It wasn't a technique; it was technology.
Dangerous.
I pressed my palm against the Meatan's chest plate.
"Flash," I whispered.
I didn't unleash a wave. I fired a condensed bullet of Ki, no larger than a marble but dense enough to punch through steel.
Thwip.
The beam pierced the armor, the flesh, and the spine, exiting out the back in a spray of grey fluid.
The giant crumbled.
One down. Eleven to go.
The others roared, a synchronized insectoid clicking that grated on my nerves. They lunged.
I moved.
I didn't fly. I stayed in the mud, weaving between their legs and strikes.
Dodge. Duck. Sidestep.
It wasn't the graceful dance of a martial artist. It was the frantic, skittering movement of a rat cornered by dogs. It looked messy.
Crack.
Another Meatan fell, screaming.
I wanted to end it. My fingers twitched. The image of the Kienzan flashed in my mind, I could slice through all eleven of them in a single arc. Or the Solar Flare, blinding them instantly.
No.
I glanced peripherally. Zuto was hovering fifty meters up, raining blasts down. Nappa was a chaotic whirlwind in the distance. They weren't watching me closely, but they were watching.
If I pulled out a signature move, or if I fought with too much polish, the report would go back to the King.
Struggle, I told myself. Look like you're drowning.
A mace swung at my head. I blocked it with my forearm, reinforcing the limb with just enough Ki to prevent a break, but letting the force throw me backward into the mud.
I rolled, coating my armor in filth.
"Get off me!" I shouted, feigning panic.
I fired a volley of small, wild blasts. Most of them missed intentionally, kicking up mud and smoke. But two of them found their marks, piercing the glowing eye-slits of the attackers.
Efficiency masked as panic.
As the third Meatan fell, clutching its ruined face, I felt it.
A spike of heat in my chest. A vibration in my blood.
It wasn't fear. It was... joy.
For a split second, the human part of my brain, the part that knew the value of life, recoiled.
But the Saiyan part?
The Saiyan part sang.
I blasted a Meatan through the throat, watching its head snap back. The rush of dopamine hit me harder than any drug. I grinned. I actually grinned.
Then, I caught my reflection in a puddle of muddy water.
The grin was feral. It wasn't mine.
I slammed the mental door shut on the feeling.
Focus, I hissed, forcing the cold logic back into the driver's seat. That's the monkey brain talking.
I looked at the aliens I was slaughtering. They were defending their home. They were fighting monsters who fell from the sky to sell their planet to a real estate lizard.
I was the villain.
So be it, I decided, ducking under another spear. Villains survive.
"HRRAAAAGH!"
A massive explosion rocked the battlefield a hundred meters away. Nappa had unleashed his 'Volcano Explosion,' a signature move that turned a city block into a crater.
The shockwave knocked the remaining Meatans off their feet. Dust and smoke billowed out, creating a wall of grey fog.
Opportunity.
I didn't attack the prone enemies. I used the chaos.
I scrambled behind the wreckage of a massive Meatan siege tank, pressing my back against the burning metal. I was hidden from my squad. Hidden from the enemy.
"Scan," I whispered, closing my eyes.
I needed to know.
Planet Meat was the graveyard of Bardock. It was where Dodoria ambushed the team. It was the prelude to the destruction of Planet Vegeta.
If Bardock was here... if Frieza's elites were here... I needed to steal a ship and leave now, wether or not I would be chased.
I extended my senses, pushing past the noise of the battlefield.
I filtered out the hundreds of low level Meatan signals (500-900). I ignored Zuto and Toma (2,000-ish). I ignored Nappa, who burned like a bonfire at 4,000.
I searched for the Sun.
Bardock. The Low Class legend who approached 10,000 power level.
I searched for the void like pressure of the Frieza Force elites, Dodoria or Zarbon, who sat comfortably in the 20,000s.
Nothing.
I swept the sector again.
There were a few stronger signatures, some Elite Saiyans from other squads fighting in the west quadrant, hovering around 3,000 to 5,000. But no one approaching 10,000.
And definitely no Dodoria.
It's a coincidence, I realized. Or just an earlier conquest. The timeline hasn't converged yet.
The relief washed over me. The planet wasn't about to become a trap. It was just a regular, run-of-the-mill genocide.
Safe, I thought, the irony bitter on my tongue.
BOOM.
A stray energy blast from a Meatan tank slammed into my cover. The wreckage disintegrated, showering me in hot shrapnel.
So much for a break.
I stood up, shaking off the debris.
To my left, about fifty meters away, I saw Ruca.
She was surrounded.
She was fighting three Elite Meatans, larger, darker skinned ones with dual-wielded energy blades. She was holding her own, her movements sharp and precise, but she was being pressed back. One of them clipped her shoulder, scoring a hit on her armor.
She stumbled.
The three elites raised their blades for a coordinated strike.
I could leave her.
But she was my shield against the King. And... despite everything... she was the only person on this rock who called me by my name.
"Dammit," I growled.
I flared my aura. I kept it messy, jagged, simulating a desperate power-up to around 900.
I launched myself out of the smoke.
I dove back into the hell.
--
Surprisingly, my class was cancelled today, so I'm currently writing the next chapter already, if I finish it, I'll post it.