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Going Native: Desire for a Goodbye (ch. 70)
🕑 Added 2021-02-15 16:07:33 +0000 UTC"Whatcha doin'?" Fasha questioned as she floated above one of her kids, bending over to peek at the datapad in his hands. The child sat on the ledge of a building, his feet dangling off as they idly kicked back and forth. When she spoke up, his gaze snapped to her before relaxing ever so slightly.
He wasn't one of the kids that she had trained and raised since the start. He was too weak. Just as Bardock had predicted, the few hundred thousand that were attached to Tarble or Vegeta, they were all vastly more powerful than the ones that hadn't been. Which was most of them. There were outliers like Elery, who was the freak of nature for her generation, but most were nearing a hundred thousand PL now that their generation had hit their first growth spurts.
A new Elite-Class had been born. And the gap between them and the Mid-Class was just as big as it had been back in Fasha's day. The Low-Class…?
Nothing had changed. The labels weren't there, but everyone could see the clear division of power. And that division would only grow with more time.
"I'm drawing," he answered somewhat guardedly.
"... Why?" Fasha was compelled to ask, not understanding the answer. "There's some mopping up left to do. You could blow up some pockets of resistance instead, you know?" How was he supposed to get stronger by sitting around making pictures?
The kid shook his head, "I know, but I'm going to draw instead," he decided, his tone telling her that he was digging his heels in and nothing short of throwing him into one of those pockets of resistance would make him do what she wanted. Fasha descended, thinking about doing exactly that, especially when the kid looked down at his datapad for a moment before glancing back up at the view.
Before them was a ruined city that had suffered an orbital bombardment. The building they stood on was one of the few still standing while others had collapsed or fallen over into the streets below. Smoke billowed upwards, fires raging uncontrollably, and craters had formed from techniques. Countless dead were on the streets -- the casualties had been high for the opposing side. More civilian casualties than Tarble would like, but for months, he was more concerned about squeezing their advantage and pushing the line.
Fasha took a peek at the drawing itself and saw that it was of the city's ruined skyline. He must have been at it for a while because the ships in the sky had moved on hours ago. Now her curiosity was piqued. "Okay… why drawing?" It was just weird, Fasha thought as she took a seat next to the kid.
Cumber, his tag ID from her scouter informed her.
"Years ago, on the first fleet I was on, there was this alien called Arty. I don't think that was his name, but that's what everyone called him because he liked art so much. He used to spend all day just drawing stuff -- sometimes he would do it like this and just draw a view… other times he drew what was inside his head." Cumber started, not even looking at her as he continued to draw on the datapad.
"I got assigned to his squad when we left Planet Vegeta, and he decided to tell me all about it," Cumber continued, his lips curling into a smile. "I didn't really care much, but he was nice to me and sometimes he gave me extra food."
Then the smile fell, "Arty got blown up by a scarab about a year later. I didn't see it happen… but he left me this datapad. I was just going to throw it away or trade it for some more food until I started going through it. He… had a lot of pictures he drew. I liked them. I tried to copy a few, but I wasn't very good."
Cumber showed her one of his earlier pictures and it looked… fine? It was less neat than the ones he was currently working on, but it looked fine. Ish.
"So, I decided I was going to get better. Then it turns out that Arty was right -- drawing is fun! There are a whole bunch of techniques and styles to master like realism and surrealism and abstract!" Cumber babbled a wide smile on his face and a look in his eye that Fasha recognized.
"But… what's the point?" Fasha questioned, still not getting it.
"I'm going to become the most powerful artist in the universe!" Cumber declared, going back to drawing with a fervor that Fasha thought was reserved for fighting and food. "I'm going to master all the styles and techniques and art theories!"
Fasha still didn't get it, but she liked his enthusiasm, "That's the spirit!" She cheered, patting him on the back. "I'm pretty sure you're already the most powerful Saiyan Artist already!" She added, making Cumber preen with the praise. It was weird that he picked art of all things, but what he was doing was the same in theory.
Every Saiyan wanted to be the best. The strongest, the most powerful… her race was driven by the idea of surmounting the insurmountable, basking at the top, then challenging others to dethrone them so they had to fight to keep their position.
Cumber was still aiming for that number one spot. Just not in fighting. A weird little quirk, but…
This was what she had feared, Fasha thought as she looked back at the skyline. The class system hadn't died. It merely adapted. Kids like Cumber… it didn't matter if he became the most powerful artist in the universe. Simply because no one else would care. He was weak, one of the weakest Saiyan kids she had seen in a long time, with a PL of ten thousand base. He would need to go Stage Ten of the Wrath State to fight the weakest Elite-Class. And a few Elite-Class kids were trying to push the Wrath State past Stage Ten with some success.
Cumber had his own strengths, but they weren't recognized. Just like how Leek's piloting skills weren't.
Fasha swallowed a sigh, saved from her thoughts when her scouter beeped. "The fleet is here," she told Cumber, who made a noise of annoyance as he hastily continued to draw, determined to finish the picture. She chuckled to herself, looking up at the sky to see drop pods raining down to the planet's surface. All of them would be droids or clones -- the mass-produced kind. Dumb as a bag of rocks, their only quality being their quantity.
It was a part of Tarble's strategy. Have task forces like hers hit the enemy hard, break their back, then have a secondary force clean up and hold the planet. Civilian populations would be dispersed across Tarble's empire, both to gain manpower where he needed it, but also to make the planets easier to manage. It was 'voluntary' in the sense that the conquered people had a choice, but when Fasha made sure to blow up any better options for food and water… most agreed to get on the ships because it was their best option of survival.
"Who are we fighting again?" Cumber asked, his hand moving quickly to draw the skyline of the city. Fasha saw he also made some adjustments too, like adding the drop pods.
She thought about it for a moment. "I don't know," Fasha admitted, forced to look it up. "Atrocius 0," she answered, looking at the stubby round aliens that had been stupid enough to declare war on them. The planet itself was once a barren rock, but revived with terraforming tech, so it wasn't even valuable.
Cumber nodded before he changed screens, finding the planet on a map of the galaxy. There, Fasha saw that he had a line of dots connecting planets that he had helped conquer. He had seen a few fronts, but the line zigzagged across the inner spiral of the galaxy as they pushed the enemy back.
Tarble's plan was working. Their momentum had slowed a fraction when the galaxy recovered from Tarble going on the offensive. Still, the TO advanced by knocking down trash planets like these, positioning themselves for another invasion, then attacking where the enemy was weak. There was a lot of thinking there, but that was all Tarble as he micromanaged a galactic spanning war. Fasha just invaded the planets she was told to.
They weren't fighting the entire galaxy. They were fighting everyone in the galaxy at the same time. There was a difference that… well, made all the difference. The galaxy wasn't unified. They weren't fighting one giant powerful empire, but they were fighting hundreds of smaller empires.
Fasha wished that they would unite already, but no such luck beyond a few alliances. They fought amongst themselves as much as they did the TO. Especially with the Green Lanterns in the situation they were in.
"At the rate we're going… we only have a few years left of war," Fasha muttered, looking back at the skyline. Her heart clenched in her chest for a number of reasons. The war had been great for her and her kids. It made them more powerful than Fasha ever dreamed of becoming. What would they do without the war driving them forward?
The biggest concern was the deadline that was set with Bardock years ago. When Fasha agreed to it, the coup felt like it was ages away. The war's ending was nowhere in sight -- if anything, the scope of the war kept expanding until it just might never end. Only now the ending was almost upon them, and…
King and Prince Vegeta would die. Tarble or Bardock would become King. And… Fasha had no clue what happened after that.
Fasha was again broken out of her thoughts when she received a message. A picture that Cumber had finished sent to her through her scouter. She looked down at him to see him smiling broadly as he put the datapad away. She let out a huff and cuffed him on the back of the head and shook her own.
She should just stop thinking about it. Tarble and Bardock were probably the only few that actually enjoyed it. Fasha would just do what she had always done -- follow orders and hope she got a decent fight out of it.
With the planet conquered, Fasha flew back up to her flagship. Cumber trailed behind her, but he quickly broke off to do his own thing. Maybe draw more pictures or something. By the time Fasha arrived in the command center, Tarble had already given them their next coordinates.
Standing before a hologram of the sector of the galaxy, Fasha saw a few other fleets that were moving towards the same point. She recognized a few of them. "Ohhh… looks like we're in for a decent fight," Fasha said with a smile as she realized that Teach was incoming. In the area was Burter, the speedster. They all looked so close on the screen, but there were vast stretches of space between them.
Curious, Fasha looked into who their target was…
"Hm," Fasha muttered, looking at the hologram, seeing a message that she had expected for some time now.
It was time to let the galaxy learn about the Vega system.
…
The Guardians of the Universe had been there since the very beginning, as far as most people seemed to be concerned. It's likely because they were. They had been one of the first sentient races to populate the universe billions of years ago. With the Guardians of the Universe, there had been the Green Lanterns. The intergalactic space police that patrolled the universe, which had been divided up into thirty-two hundred sectors. With the Power Rings that resided on their fingers, they had managed to stop invasions, natural disasters, and extinction-level events…
For billions of years. For most, the Guardians of the Universe were ancient before their species even gained sentience. And for all that time, they and the Green Lanterns were synonyms for the good and righteous. The universe as a whole trusted them, even if they didn't like them.
And, with a single move, that trust was shattered. With so many years of being in play, the list of dirty things that they had swept under the carpet was long. Mistakes that cost lives, tampering with species through various stages of development, but the greatest mistake of them all was the slaughter of sector 666. Something that could still be felt today because of all the sectors, the only one that was more depopulated was 2814, the sector earth resided in, because of a pirate that was overly fond of genocide.
People might have just called it false propaganda created by us, the Trade Organization, but when the Green Lanterns collapsed into a civil war… that was all the validity that most people needed. Billions of years of building a reputation and it only took five minutes to destroy it.
That, I decided as I filtered through newsreels, was a lesson to take to heart. If a reputation that had been built over billions of years could be ruined so easily, then my own was undoubtedly more fragile. A video played of two Green Lanterns fighting it out -- one with a traditional Green Lantern emblem on their chest and the other with the emblem turned on its side.
The same site could be seen across the galaxy. Green on Green, Green on Indigo… or Yellow, or Red, or Blue.
It was almost annoying, in a way. For more than a decade, I had fought against the Reach. Then for the past two years, against the entire galaxy. And now, with the civil war and more power rings entering the fray… only now did the war receive a proper title.
The War of Light. For all the colored Lanterns appearing. They completely usurped the narrative, sweeping the rug from underneath a decade of war. It had a nice ring to it, but it was annoying how the focus was solely on the fact that Lanterns were fighting amongst themselves.
But that was just me being petty. It was useful. With the focus on the Lanterns and the downfall of the Guardians, the galaxy had recoiled. Their guard had slipped -- first, they recoiled at the news of my promotion, and now their stalwart ally was fighting itself and had been proved to be more monstrous than the Trade Organization. An impressive feat, to be certain.
I slowly pulled myself up on a pull-up bar as I cycled through the constant stream of information. My muscles burned with effort, struggling to lift my own body weight, much less the weights I had strapped to my body. Altogether, they only weighed about five hundred pounds. However, underneath two hundred times normal gravity, they weighed a hundred thousand. Add that to my two hundred pounds of body weight, with each pull up I was lifting around a hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
Sweat dripped from my body as I continued my workout routine, multitasking as I developed strategies and counters to moves made to counter me. Fasha and Mom were in a position to take another world, but it was too early to tell if anyone was taking the bait. I would only know for certain when the spies reported that they had, or I saw mobilization to the Vega system.
"Hm," I heard someone hum, making me go still mid-pull-up. My gaze snapped to the source, only to find empty air. Stretching out my ki sense, I similarly found nothing. A frown tugged at my lips for a moment before I resumed my workout session. For some time, I had been using the gravity chamber to aid me in growing stronger.
In the four years, for me, I had reclaimed most of my techniques. The only one that gave me noticeable difficulty was the Hellzone Grenade on the account that my ki was so much heavier that stopping and controlling hundreds of blasts was difficult when I couldn't give it my full attention. Now I could focus on improving my strength and power level without worrying about undoing my progress in controlling my ki.
Holding myself up, I began to lift my legs, working my core by curling them underneath me or stretching them out before me. My biceps ached, but I was used to ignoring that.
However, I stopped again when I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. Looking over, I saw nothing. Just an empty chamber with some weights and supplies to help me work out. I reached out with my ki sense again, encompassing all of the War World, but found nothing. I was alone on the planet.
But it reminded me of the Indigo Lanterns too much to ignore it.
Dropping to the ground, I returned the gravity to normal with a thought. Checking the cameras in the room with the help of the hologram, but I saw nothing on the cameras. Nothing was there. Shrugging off the weights strapped to my body, my frown deepened while the weights hit the floor, landing in a puddle of my sweat.
"Show yourself," I ordered, knowing something was here with me, but nothing revealed itself. I couldn't see it and I couldn't sense it. Yet, I didn't believe for a moment that I was imagining things.
I did, however, receive a response.
The door to the gravity chamber opened., Making my gaze snap to it. That wasn't something I could ignore. Not only was someone here, but they had access to the Warworld. My hands curled into fists as I strode to the door, having a hologram follow me to give me the source of the command. I paused when I saw the source.
The command had come from me.
My eyes narrowed into slits. Someone was playing a game with me. I was not amused.
I continued to walk forward, leaving the hologram behind to wink out. Someone was attacking my connection to the Warworld and subverting its systems. Were they latching onto my mental connection to the Warworld? It was the only way to explain-
Down the hall, I saw a hint of movement. Something briefly peeking out from the corner before disappearing. My feet dug into the steel floor before I launched myself forward, closing the distance between us in a fraction of a second. Yet, when I rounded the corner, I saw no one. Cloaking tech?
To be sure, I fired a ki blast down the hall, filling it so there could be no escaping the blast. I didn't feel it hit anything but the far wall. There was nothing there unless they could also become intangible. One of the Reach's brainwashing Scarabs? Did Koter honestly think just because I was alone, I was somehow vulnerable?
The dust began to settle while the drones went to repair the damage. Lowering my hand, I was about to call out to the Scarab, only for the words to catch in my throat when I saw two figures standing in the dust cloud. I flew to them in an instant, pushing the dust aside, yet when I arrived, they were already gone.
Looking down at the spot where they once stood, I slowly looked to the left to see a door open on the far hall. It was easy enough to guess where I was being led. They were taking me to the command center. What unrestrained arrogance, treating me like a rat in a maze. Even still, I was curious, so I walked to the command center. All the time, a growing sense of unease with each step when I confirmed that the cameras hadn't seen anything. Edited footage, or…?
Minutes later, I arrived at the command center, expecting an ambush. In a way, it was. Just not in the way I expected.
A figure stood with their back turned towards me as they looked up at the hologram of the war that stretched across the galaxy. Next to them was an animal on four legs covered in white fur with spots of black and brown. I heard a low whistle from the figure while my eyes narrowed into slits.
"How are you here?" I demanded to know, entering the command room while my hands curled into fists.
The figure turned around, revealing… a missing face. I could faintly see features -- places where their eyes sank compared to where their nose rose, but it was like someone eased the details. There were no eyes, no nostrils or mouth.
"You got hit with pure compassion and it jostled the lock to my room. Wasn't like I had much else to do. So I picked it and escaped," the figure answered with a small shrug.
My lips thinned, "You were awake?" I asked, my eyes dipping down to the 'dog'. Rascal. He seemed to be in better shape than the human. The previous me.
"Nah. I was asleep after you rejected me, but apparently, I'm your conscience or something, because when the light of compassion hit you, it woke me up," he answered. "Something like appealing to your humanity."
I needed to speak to Narra. "That doesn't explain why you're here," I pointed out. "Subverting control of the Warworld… I'm guessing my body is next?" The fact that he was here explained how he could control the Warworld. The orders came from him, inside of my body, so the Warworld interpreted it as me giving the order.
The figure scoffed, "I'm good." He dismissed with a shake of his head. "Mostly because I don't think I'd win that fight in my condition."
"Your face is missing," I observed and earned a baleful look from the specter. Impressive given the lack of a face.
"I wonder whose fault that is?" He questioned sarcastically. "You stole a shit ton of my memories. Did you think that wouldn't have consequences for me?"
I crossed my arms, "I wasn't overly concerned about you when we last met."
"Evidently," was the sharp retort. There was a beat of silence as we glared at one another, despite one of us lacking any eyes. The silence stretched on for a long minute, neither of us willing to back down. The last time I saw my previous life… it had been during a purification ritual. I thought that would be the last time I would ever see him. Now, he was here, standing before me like a real person.
The hologram behind him changed, going from displaying the progress of the entire war to a real-time feed of a planet. Its surface was marked with flashes of light, a drone swarm could be seen from orbit in various locations. All the while, the planet was being barraged by the Warworld's orbital bombardment.
“This,” the figure began, “is why I’m here.”
I cocked an eyebrow at his grandiose tone, unimpressed with it or him. “Your point?” I questioned, wanting to get this over with.
“Killing millions of people on automated systems now?” He asked, his tone flippant, but judging. My eyes narrowed at his tone.
“This is why I refused to join with you,” I told him bluntly. The Warworld was besieging a planet at the moment and there was no need for me to take the field. The Warworld could hit more targets on a grander scale, while eliminating enemy combatants with war drones. It was faster to just let the Warworld work, letting me hit more planets, which in turn allowed me to push the line further.
“That would mean significantly more to me if you weren’t a mass-murdering piece of shit, so feel free to shove your opinion of me up your ass,” my past life responded, flipping me off. “I’m not just talking about this though. The Vega system… you’re making a Stalingrad, you know that right?”
I frowned at him, “I don’t know what that is.” I admitted to him. There was a fair bit of overlap with our memories, but chunks were missing. There were memories and lessons and information that I had internalized long before I tore what I could from him. Those memories, I’m guessing, were gone from him. Just as the memories I didn’t take were unknown to me.
“You’re building a meat grinder and you’re going to shove half of the galaxy through it,” the figure pointed out.
“I know,” I answered shortly. I knew the projections if everything went how I wanted it to. The expected casualties and death toll on both sides. The Vega system would be where nations would be broken for generations even if we didn’t invade them after. It would be exactly as he said -- a meat grinder that would chew up trillions of soldiers. A battlefield unlike anything the galaxy had ever witnessed before. Death on an unimaginable scale happening every second the battle raged… “It’ll work. It’ll end the war.”
To my surprise, the figure nodded before he sat down on the floor, leaning against the back of the chair at the center of the command room. Rascal laid his head down in his lap, accepting a few pets. “It will. You’ve let the galaxy know you’re working on something to end the war. That’s going to scare the absolute shit out of them. It’s like finding the boogeyman has the key to your backdoor…”
The specter sighed, “But that’s not why I’m here,” he said, earning a frown from me. That… was contradictory. “Do you know what’s in the Vega system?”
I didn’t. “What do you mean by that?” I asked, my mind turning over the question. What did that mean?
“That answers that I guess,” the figure remarked.
“Feel like sharing?” I asked, wondering if I could pry the answers from him like last time if he didn’t.
A scoff was my answer, “With you? Not really.” He answered, unafraid of my sharp look. Then he sighed as he continued to pet Rascal. “Well… I might if you answer a question of mine.” He hedged a moment later, catching my attention.
I cocked my head, “Ask it,” I ordered.
“Do you regret it? Rejecting me? Your humanity?” He asked, sounding like he already knew the answer. Or, at least he suspected it. He should. The answer was fairly obvious.
“No,” I answered without having to think about it. “Years ago, when we first met… accepting you would have broken me. I wouldn’t have been able to reconcile who I was, what I’ve done, and what I will do. Or what I needed to do. The blast that awoke you… if it wasn’t for Narra’s engravings, it would have overwhelmed me. I wouldn’t be much different than Sinestro.”
The figure was silent at that, but he shook his head after a second. “I doubt that,” he voiced. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? You had the compassion of a saint and you still killed people in cold blood. I’m sure that’s all very impressive for a Saiyan, but I’m just an everyday human. Or what’s left of one, I guess.” He sounded thoughtful, leaning his head against the chair.
“What happens after the war ends?” The specter asked suddenly, an edge in his tone.
“What’s in the Vega system?” I shot back, my tone unyielding.
“What’s the plan?” The specter refused to answer, tilting his head at me. “Everything goes to plan. The war ends in a couple of years. Most of the galaxy throws lives away in the Vega system until the death toll becomes too much for them and they just break. The Trade Organization has won and they’re in control of the galaxy. What happens then?” The edge in his tone grew…
I recognized the tone, I thought distantly. It sounded like me.
“Is there a point here?” I asked, not answering his question… and that was an answer in itself, wasn’t it? Was I that unnerved by his presence?
“I was sorta awake for that fight with Indigo,” the specter of who I was informed. “And something stood out to me. You… are half-assing this. Not the whole war thing -- if anything, you need to pull back a little on that, but that’s just human sensibilities talking. I’m talking about Frieza. I’m talking about the aftermath when the dust settles…”
“You clearly have something to say, so spit it out,” I growled at him. He was frustratingly…
“The war is going to end, Tarble. You’re in the last leg of the race. It’s almost over,” he began. “So fucking act like it. That whole plan your dad cooked up? Quit treating it’s some far off problem. Your family is going to rebel against Frieza and the Cold family. It’s happening.” He snapped at me before he cocked his head. “And you spewed all that bullshit of victory being the only thing you could offer the dead. You know that’s shit. The dead don’t care about the war. They never have. What they care about is what they left behind.”
My first instinct was to snap at him, dismiss his words… but they rang with enough truth that I hesitated to do so.
I closed my eyes for a moment and took in a slow breath. This entire conversation was off. The fact that he was here months after Indigo hit me with the light of compassion… everything about it was just off. I came into the room treating him like an invader and an enemy. That didn’t mesh with how the conversation had progressed.
“The war will end,” the specter said, filling the silence. “The dead are dead, so they don’t care about anything you can give them. I’m a bit of an expert in that regard, so trust me on this -- the only thing that the dead will want is something better for those that they left behind. Do you think Frieza is going to give it to them? Or your dad? Or your brother?”
They wouldn’t. Frieza… I saw first hand how he treated those beneath him. I had always known, but I had never felt that fear until I made a mistake. Up until that moment, I always had his favor. Without it, I saw a very different side of Frieza, even if I did leave that room with a promotion. When the war ended…
I knew it deep down. I had always known. I had just pushed the possibility from my mind.
When the war ended, it would just mean another would begin. When Frieza controlled the galaxy, he would just move on to another. And another. And another until the entire universe was his to control. Even then, he would just find a way to invade others.
The war ending wouldn’t be the end.
“You can’t give the dead anything, Tarble. All you can do is give the living a better future. That’s the only thing that can justify this war.”
“Is that what you’re here to tell me?’ I asked, still finding it odd that he was here at all.
The specter shrugged. “You wouldn’t have figured it out until it was way too late.” He sighed before parts of him began to slowly fade. He looked down at his hand, seeing that it was translucent before fading away entirely. “Looks like that’s all the time I’ve got.”
I frowned, “Will we speak again?” I questioned, looking down at my fading and faceless past self and feeling…
He wasn’t my enemy, but I treated him like one.
“No,” he answered and I wasn’t surprised by it. “I think I’m done. I’d rather just die than be your hanger-on.” He had his pride. Good.
“You were already dying,” I realized, the final piece clicking together to explain why he was here all of a sudden. He was saying goodbye.
The specter shrugged, “Magic has a shelf life. You were supposed to kill me outright during the ritual. I wasn’t ever supposed to last this long in the first place.” His arm faded from view, the bottoms of his legs also gone while color faded from his torso. “Anything you’d like to say?”
There were plenty of things. “You’re right,” I could admit to the fading remnant of who I once was. “The war will end and the cost to end it will be oceans of blood. I can’t give the dead anything, but I can give who they leave behind something better than what they’ve known until now.”
The war would end. Frieza… his brother and father, they would all have to die. My father… my brother… I…
“I know I am,” he responded before the last traces faded from view entirely, leaving nothing behind. Rascal lingered for a moment more before he too was gone.
And I was alone with nothing but my thoughts.
