Chapter 10

We tracked Arkillo through the corridors of the Blade of Challenge, Shayera staying close enough to me that we couldn't be separated, as that was what had screwed her over the last time. Arkillo's Vorn blood was spattered here and there in drops of fresh magenta against floors and bulkheads, allowing us to track the otherwise untrackable Vorn Serial Killer. Unfortunately, relying on blood spatter wasn't the best of ideas, after all, Arkillo had to realize we could track him like this. If he was smart, he would use the Blood Spatter to lead us into an ambush or trap.

As it would turn out, that's precisely what wound up happening at a few different points. The first time had seen us follow the trail of blood spatter down into the munitions hold. Most of the drones here were inert, lacking power for years, and only rated to operate independently for a few months at a time, they had long since shut down. It wasn't the drones that had become the issue, though, it was the plasma munitions. As I followed the blood spatter into the munitions hold, I tripped a wire, invisible in the fading light, that pulled the pin out of a cluster of plasma grenades.

As Shayera's hand gripped my shoulder, she yanked me back away from the entrance to Munitions Storage and a pinkish-purple explosion occurred as the cluster of grenades detonated right in front of where I had been standing previously, burning through my remaining armor and searing my chest and stomach, though not even close to fatally. It was still a wound that being careless had dealt me that I otherwise could have avoided.

"Type Two Plasma Grenades, those aren't a Khundian Weapon. Those are Dhorian Weapons." Mused Shayera.

"What's that mean for the Job, Cap?" I questioned.

"First, it means Arkillo's clearly been salvaging other wrecks. Secondly, it means you let me take the lead from here on." Answered Shayera.

"I'm fine, it's just a light wound." I protested.

"For you, maybe. For me, though? Probably not." Refuted Shayera.

"Right. So you take the lead. Where to next?" I queried.

"Let's check up on the Command Deck." Answered Shayera.

"Sure, lead on." I agreed.

So she did, and Shayera led us up out of the Engineering Deck and into the Crew Deck, trying to follow the signs of Arkillo's passing. The next trap we walked into was with Shayera leading. We'd been heading through the Officer's Quarters when it happened. I caught a whiff of something acrid and frowned. Shayera couldn't smell it, though. The Thanagarian Sense of Smell just wasn't as acute as the Saiyan one was. It was as we were passing by the Chief Engineering Officer's Quarters when the trap finally began to spring on us.

It started with a hissing noise to accompany the smell, getting louder over the course of a moment or two. I didn't have a whole lot of time to do much, so I simply Grabbed Shayera and dragged her back up the hallway at speed. She let out a squawk of indignant rage but that subsided when the door to the Chief Engineering Officer's Quarters gave way and out flowed a giant mass of greenish acid that looked like the byproducts of some kind of ship reactor. It smelled like them too.

The Acid not only ate through the Chief Engineering Officer's Door but also the deckplates, sizzling and throwing off electromagnetic waves, frying the circuits in Shayera's Thanagarian Wingman Helmet that she was using to be able to see in the dark before flowing down to the engineering deck below, sizzling through the deckplates down there and starting to eat through the hull. Thankfully, my new Tuffle Scouter was hardened against that sort of thing, but Shayera's Wingman Helmet was meant for Police Work, where EMP Devices weren't usually a common hazard. Shayera ripped her helmet off of her head, revealing her crimson hair and annoyed expression.

"How did you know?" She asked, turning around to frown at me.

"The smell. We Saiyans have a pretty keen sense of smell." I responded.

"Well, my optics are fried until we can get my Helmet Repaired." Frowned Shayera.

"I'll take point again, Cap. Don't worry." I nodded.

Fortunately, the last trap that we wound up in wasn't a trap at all, but an ambush. We'd made it to the Command Deck and had just entered the bridge when I heard a slight scraping from the ceiling. I barely had time to turn around and cross my arms in front of me to block before Arkillo came springing toward me from the corner of the ceiling above the blast door that led to the bridge from the corridor outside it. His claws carved into my forearms, drawing bloody furrows across my blocking arms as he slammed into me, sending us both to the deckplates with him on top of me, claws raised and ready to plunge down into my chest.

It was here that I got a good look at Arkillo and how he was holding up after our last fight. The answer to that was not well, it seemed. He was up and about, but still burned bloody in several places, with a cracked tusk from where I'd punched him through the ceiling in our last bout, and clearly had some broken bones. He was still ready to fight, though, trying to finish me off as his claws descended down toward me only to take an electrified, Nth Metal, Mace to the torso and be smashed off me, sideway as Shayera made her presence known.

I struggled to my feet, realizing that I wasn't exactly in much better shape than Arkillo, even as Shayera flew toward him with her mace striking out at him. Even with the Nth Metal augmenting her blows, though, Shayera was only doing minor damage to Arkillo. She would have to hit him over a half dozen times with a mace like that to put him down, meanwhile, Arkillo only had to hit her once. After landing a third blow on him, that was exactly what happened too, as Arkillo grabbed Shayera's Wrist as she swung her mace at him for a fourth blow, and slammed her down onto the deckplates with enough force to bend the metal.

Shayera cried out in pain, losing her grip on her Nth Metal Mace, and was down for the count. Arkillo loomed large over her, leering and glaring at her, but I wasn't having it. Summoning the Ki from deep within my gut, I let out a roar, vomiting a beam of Ki from my Mouth as I shot the Breath of Kha'zro at Arkillo. The Beam smashed into his torso, searing into him, and blasting him through the bulkhead of the bridge and out onto the Wrecker's Plain Below. I leaped out after him using the Sawtooth Ascension Mandala Technique to fly out and slam an elbow into Arkillo's jaw as he fell. This broke off the tusk that had previously only been cracked, but Arkillo had the presence of mind to slam a knee strike into my ribs, cracking two of my lower ribs with desperate, adrenaline-fuelled, power.

As we plummeted, we took turns slamming punches, elbows, and knees into each other. We beat each other badly as we fell, but when we hit the ground, throwing up dust and debris as a crater roughly six galactic standard meters, or twenty feet, in diameter was formed by our impact with enough force to topple the wreck of the Blade of Challenge onto its side. I was huffing and puffing as the pair of us lay there, battered, bloody, burned, and broken. My everything hurt, and I was gonna need to spend at least a day in a Healing Tank if I wanted to fix all this in a reasonable time frame. Arkillo was worse off, as both of his legs had been broken in the fall. I had used him to break my own fall, after all.

"Consider. . .yourself. . .captured." I grunted between breaths.

"Hate. . .you." Growled Arkillo.

"The feeling's. . .mutual. . .you big. . .lizard." I groaned.

"Kill you. . .when I. . .get free." Spat Arkillo.

"Keep. . .dreaming." I huffed, sitting up.

I might not have had a whole lot left in the tank, but I had enough to finish this. I began to form the mudras for the Spell of Slumber, chanting the words and drawing on my reserves of mystic energy. It wasn't easy, I think I dislocated my shoulder in the fall, after all, but I managed. The spell shot forth from my hands and enveloped Arkillo. He was fast asleep shortly afterward. It had been a pain in the ass, but we'd captured him.

As soon as I'd gotten my spell off, Shayera came flying down on her Nth Metal Wings, battered, bruised, but still very much alive. Score one point for Thanagarian Wingman Armor, I guess. I turned to her as she landed and nodded.

"Call the Lanterns. We have a bounty to turn in." I said.

Then a wave of dizziness washed over me and I toppled to the dirt. I was utterly spent and must have been in that stage of exhaustion where I was getting delirious because my last thought was to wonder why everything looked to be on its side all of a sudden.

Then unconsciousness claimed me. . .

XXXX

When I woke up, I was in a healing tank on an unfamiliar planet, with a human-looking nurse looking in on me floating in the tank. I couldn't tell with the fluid coloring everything, but as soon as she pressed the button to drain the fluid and open up the tank, I realized exactly what species she was. The orange skin and blonde hair gave her away as a Graxosian almost immediately.

"Where am I?" I questioned as soon as I was out of the tank.

"Graxos Four. You and your Captain brought in a dangerous wanted criminal and we had the only prison nearby that could hold him. Lantern Rrab is on his way back from Oa to take Arkillo to a science cell. You've been out of commission for thirty-six hours." Informed the Nurse.

"That's a lot more detailed than I was expecting." I mused.

"You have no idea how many times something like this has happened. It's standard procedure these days to give full reports on request to Patients brought in like you were." Smirked the Nurse.

"Well, thank you. You said Lantern Rrab?" I queried.

"Lantern Fentara Rrab, yes. He's the Lantern of our sector, that's Sector Two-Eight-One-Five by the way. His Brother Blish Rrab is likely to take over if something happens to him, that Family has a long history of being Green Lanterns going back two generations." Responded the Nurse.

"All right, one last question. Where are my clothes?" I asked.

"When you were brought in, your clothing was a total loss. Your captain brought you some pants and a shirt, along with your Scouter Device, but wanted to tell you that it would be a few more days before Karn had some new armor for you, whatever that means." Relayed the Nurse.

"Thanks, I'll just get dressed, then." I nodded.

"Not so fast. I need to give you a check-up to see if there's any lingering damage that the Healing Tank didn't fix. It's a medical marvel, but it can miss things." Warned the Nurse.

"Right. Have at." I sighed, acquiescing.

Another hour of various tests, poking and prodding, scanning with diagnostic scanners, and the like ensued after that. It was strange to me, after all, the PTO never bothered with stuff like this after the healing tank did its work, nor did the Saiyan Army. That could just be the fact that doing so would cut into the Bottom Line for the PTO and that the Saiyan Army didn't like to 'coddle weaklings', which in their view this would definitely count as. That sort of short-sightedness was probably why Frieza was going to get deposed sooner or later. Even if Goku wasn't a thing here, I couldn't imagine a fight between Frieza and Superman going any differently than the Fight between him and Goku had. As for the Saiyan Army, where were they now? Dead, that's where.

Eventually, however, the nurses conceded that I was fit for duty. I was fitter than I had been previously, in fact, something that I attributed to the Zenkai Boost. In fact, the first thing I did when I had clothes on, some of my spare black and burnt orange duds from the Nth Talon, was take the Tuffle Scouter and do a Self-Scan. As the numbers flashed by on the screen, they eventually settled down at two-thousand-seven-hundred-fifty. That was almost an eighty percent jump from where I'd been before heading into the Wrecker's Plain! Even Vegeta had only managed thirty-three percent after getting completely destroyed by Goku on Earth! That was insane, but I wasn't complaining.

"Vegeta eat your heart out." I muttered to myself with a grin.

With that, I headed out of the Hospital Room and down the corridor, making my way out of the Hospital Entirely. As soon as I stepped out of the Hospital and onto the streets of Garos Four, however, I was met with an unexpected sight. Sure there were plenty of aliens on a cosmopolitan world like this, but the one I spotted was from a race I definitely hadn't been expecting to see for a good long while.

Green skin, fairly humanoid, with two antennae on the forehead, and pointed ears. That was definitely a Namekian. He was wearing a pair of baggy, blue, pants, a white tunic, and pointed boots, along with a pair of blue wrist wraps. He also clearly noticed me noticing him. The Namekian caught my eye, nodding once to me, before ducking down an alleyway. That was as good an invitation as I could have possibly gotten, and so, I followed him down into the alley. He was waiting for me there, nodding at me as I approached.

"You are a Saiyan?" He questioned.

"I am." I confirmed.

"Where is your tail?" Queried the Namekian.

"It was more trouble than it was worth." I frowned.

"I see." Mused the Namekian.

"You're a Namekian, right?" I asked.

"I am." Nodded the Namekian.

"What are you doing here?" I questioned.

"Not every Namekian stayed on Namek after the Great Drought. Some of us fled to the stars to escape it. You may have heard of the Pirate Lord Slug. He was one such Namekian, though I was told there were other circumstances surrounding his exile." Shrugged the Namekian.

"But you're not with Slug, are you?" I queried.

"I am not. My branch fled to a system not far from Planet Vegeta, actually, though it was not called that at the time." Intoned the Namekian.

"Oh." I muttered.

I was quickly figuring out where this was going. A lot of the worlds that were that close to Planet Vegeta didn't survive the initial frenzy of attacks that King Vegeta the First sent forces out on. The War with the Tuffles had wrecked a large portion of the planet, after all, and while we'd gotten hold of Ships from the defeat of the Tuffles, we hadn't gotten much in the way of supplies. They'd been hit worse than us, after all, since they had all been killed. Only by pillaging the neighboring areas of space had we been able to survive, at least until Pasnap's Rebellion wrecked the Planet again.

"Indeed. Your people raided mine. It weakened us. When Mongul came with Warworld, looking for a lead on the Dragonballs of Namek, we were unable to defend ourselves properly because we were still repairing the damage caused by your people's raid. Many of my people were slain, my father included, and the rest of us fled, returning to Namek. When I was strong enough, I left Namek, vowing to avenge my dead father." Intoned the Namekian.

"So you're looking for combat, then?" I questioned.

"Not with you. Not yet. You are too weak still." Scoffed the Namekian.

"Too weak?" I queried.

I couldn't help it, human mind or not, the insult made my blood boil. Of course, what happened next cooled me right back down again. This Namekian let out a shout, spiking his power, though keeping it tightly restrained. It was still enough to overwhelm my fledgling Ki Sense. The numbers on the Tuffle Officer's Scouter beeped away as they climbed high into the six-digit range, reaching Two-hundred-thousand before the Namekian clamped down on his display of power, and I knew he had power still to spare, from what I felt, his true power was at least three times that.

Honestly, the only way he could have gotten to that level of power was by absorbing other Namekians. It was the only thing that made sense, which begged the question of just how he had been unable to defend his Colony World. He must have been just a child when Mongul had come and absorbed other Namekians over the course of his travels, that was the only explanation I could think of that would make any sense.

"As I said, too weak. I am not a Saiyan, there is no honor in avenging myself on one who cannot put up a fight. I have known Saiyans to grow in power before, however. The Last Saiyan I slew had reached a power in excess of even that by utilizing some form of Wrathful State." Sneered the Namekian.

"So what? You want me to get stronger before you kill me?" I asked.

"I do. I am known as Escargon. When the time comes that you are worth killing, I will come to engage you in battle. On that day, I will have my vengeance." Warned the Namekian, Escargon.

And with that, he left, flying up into the air and away from the Alleyway. That was scary, though one thing did stick out to me. The mention of a Wrathful State. It was definitely not the Great Ape Transformation, I'm pretty sure not even an Oozaru could have beaten Escargon, given the average power level of Saiyan Warriors during the last years before Planet Vegeta's destruction. Thinking, though, the description did match something else. The False Super-Saiyan State that Goku had used against Lord Slug in the movie of the same name. After all, if Slug was kicking around, then that had to be a thing that could happen.

I couldn't worry about that right now, however. I had to meet with Shayera and the rest of the Crew. It was chilling, though, to think that a guy with that kind of power would be gunning for me in the future. I would definitely have to up my game if I wanted to survive. Relying purely on Zenkai boosts to jump in power constantly was no longer an option. Thankfully, the Nth Talon had gravity training facilities. The Czarnians had been crazy like that, after all. I headed for the Spaceport to try and see if I could get some training in. Unfortunately, I wasn't back at the ship for two minutes before the entire crew had to turn out to hand Arkillo over to Green Lantern Fentara Rrab.

Training would have to wait. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here we have the next chapter. Rugulo gets utterly destroyed in the process of capturing Arkillo, though he gets a nice Zenkai boost out of the deal. Unfortunately, Shayera taking him to Graxos Four has put him on the Radar of one of Two Extant Super Namekians out there in the Galaxy. Escargon has a vengeance boner against Saiyans in general, but fortunately, has enough of a code of honor to wait until the Saiyan can do more than die immediately to challenge them to a deathmatch.

Also, yes, this is me saying that the False Super Saiyan State that Goku used in the Lord Slug Movie is a thing, though it's only half as good as the normal Super Saiyan State would be. It's a twenty-five times multiplier, rather than a fifty times one. That's still a lot better than the Oozaru, plus it can be used without a tail or moon.

At any rate, the next chapter will involve an appearance by Fentara Rrab, Green Lantern of Sector Two-Eight-One-Five, and father of future Ms. Fanservice of the Green Lantern Corps, Arisia Rrab, who right now, is just a toddler instead of the Teenager she would be in canon. I'll also have a few images out before then.

Stay tuned. . .