Meraxa and Cargo could already see the village in the distance. It looked fairly simple, actually.
"I hear your species doesn't have females. That true?" Meraxa asked Cargo, who took a few seconds to think about the answer.
"Um... well for a really long time we didn't, but then the Senior Elder Guru figured it out kinda recently, so we do now. In fact, the village elder is amongst the first of us to be what you humans would refer to as 'married'."
"As in wife and everything?"
"Yes, Guru even added reproductive organs. They now have two children, both of whom I occasionally care for." Cargo smiled at the thought of them, the kid must've liked the two a lot then.
"There, theres the village! And the elder-" Cargo stopped mid sentence, the expression on his face pretty much spoke 'horror'. Meraxa grabbed his sleeve, and shook it a bit.
"Hey! Hey! Whats wrong?" Meraxa had to yell in Cargo's ear to finally get him to respond.
"The village... its on fire."
The words were hard for the little guy to say, and Meraxa remembered one of the things he'd learned about Namekians from Mr Popo on the lookout.
"You might want to take some food with you."
"Why's that Mr Popo?"
"Well its doubtful the Namekians will have any."
"Huh?"
"They don't eat whatsoever, and simply take in water to stay vitalised."
"You're kidding right?"
"Please. The reason you have such plentiful meals here is because only one other person here eats any - me. And even then I've trained myself to not need much."
"So they don't cook or anything either?"
"Heavens no. The only reason you might even smell burning is because of lightning strikes. Though I guess they might have visitors from time to time..."
He looked above, and noted that there was nothing resembling a storm cloud in any way. Not to mention, the village was actually kinda low when you compared it to the rest of the surrounding landscape, why would lightning ever strike
there? It made no sense really.
Maybe what Cargo had said earlier about how they couldn't go a month without being invaded for the dragonballs was tempting fate.
"Hang on - I'm going to go into overdrive." Meraxa told the small namekian, who indeed gripped all he could as Meraxa sped past the sound barrier, diving towards the village as he went.
The namekians below only turned their heads to see Meraxa when he had already landed, and was putting down Cargo.
"What happened?" Cargo asked, before one of the Namekians went to attack Meraxa, who didn't even react, instead letting the chop bounce off his skin.
"And maybe you could tell the kid
without attacking his friend eh?" Meraxa asked, as the namekian backed off, slightly scared now.
Before anyone answered, Meraxa's eyes scoured the scene. There was signs of a fight alright. The scenery was messed up, broken, the smoke and flame rising out of what he assumed to be the elder's house via a rather unshapely hole in the roof.
"Humans - just like you 'friend' - came and attacked us. The warriors are out right now, so only the elder posed any real threat to them. Using their technology, they threatened to destroy the entire village with a 'nuclear bomb'. We've heard tales of the weapon's destructive power, hence why the elder did not fight back and break their necks. Instead, they broke his, tossed him into his own house, and torched it. And now we Namekian's have our first widow." The namekian who had attacked Meraxa spoke, before moving aside and directing Meraxa's gaze to a (obviously Earth inspired given the chest) female namekian, crying with her two boys. There were others crying as well, over the corpses of dead friends
Meraxa pulled out the dragon radar for a moment, checked it, then put it away again.
"And they took the dragonball I guess? That'd be the obvious reason for them to come here." Meraxa asked, the namekian suddenly getting quite angry at the question.
"Y-you! How did you know? Was it that device?" The namekian went to grab Meraxa's bad, but the boy easily side stepped it, watching the namekian as he fell to the ground.
"Yes it was. And if I simply let you destroy it, then I wouldn't be able to track these guys down, now would I?"
"Track them dow-?!" The namekian nearly yelled, until he saw the 7 star ball under Meraxa's left arm.
"You're here from the same reason as them? To take the dragonballs for whatever sick purpose you have?" Another namekian accused, and similar accusations began to fly from the mouths of the rest.
"S-stop!" It was Cargo's voice which severed those accusations, the little one panting to get back his breath.
"This person... is
nothing like them if what you say is true. He... he saved me! From a wild dinosaur!"
"Yeah right. He's probably just trying to have you lower your guard, and lead him to the rest of the dragonballs. If Nail were here..."
"He'd never find those guys! They have a dragonball right? This human has a device to track them! He can
help us."
"We will not accept help from outsiders."
"Doesn't matter if you accept it or not. I'm still going after them." Meraxa said floating slightly off the ground, pulling out the dragon radar for a second time, and scanned the entire planet. One dragonball - the closest - was moving, and was the most likely target to be the humans who did this crime. As he charged up his ki for a quick burst of speed, he said to the namekian who claimed he was just trying to trick Cargo.
"If I was desperate enough to start tricking a child into doing my dirty work, I wouldn't have this now would I?" He said with the radar gripped tightly in his hand as he disappeared in a mere flicker, the dragonball he'd had dropped into Cargo's hands.
It didn't take long for Meraxa to find a ship - and a fairly large one at that, must've been big enough for a full invasion force - in an open field. What
wasn't so open about it would be the various legions of soldiers, mecha units, and other forces there were. This would be easy.
He swooped in like a bird of prey, plucking the pilots from their cockpits and snatching rifles from the hands of the foot soldiers before they even knew what had happened. When they
did know had happened, Meraxa was already standing on a huge pile of guns in the middle of the field, with the pilots on top of the ship. He grinned.
"Hey guys. You didn't happen to go barging into a local village today did you? May have pillaged a bit, broke an old guy's neck? Maybe even snatch up a basketball sized jewel with stars in it? If so - prepare to get your ass handed to you." He walked off the pile, and watched as the soldiers tried to charge up to - or past, in order to reach their weapons - him, only to be swiftly dealt a punch to their lower torso, knocking them flat in seconds.
A few of them managed to get in the mechas in place of the actual pilots, and trained the various gatling guns on him. The weapons spun as they spurred to life, before unleashing bullets at over 1200 rounds per minute at the lone boy.
He simply stood there and yawned as the bullets ricocheted off his skin.
One or two might've gone into his eye, but he couldn't tell. He was too busy walking right up to them, ripping off the weapons, shoving the soldiers out of the cockpits, then crushing the mechs like he probably should've done in the first place.
"Back to the ship! Back to the ship!" One of the soldiers yelled, and the rest listened to him as they all scrambled into the massive superstructure of an interplanetary piece of transport. Meraxa let them go on however, as he was looking at the symbol that was emblazoned on the side of the vessel. It was kinda like a bowtie, except with two 'R's on it. Weird, who'd think up something as stupid as that?
It was as he considered this that he finally allowed the sounds of whirring metal to meet his brain. He looked at the source of said sound, and found it to be a bunch of cannons on the ship (looked like the energy variant) being pointed at him. Were they really just that dense?
The cannons fired.
"Of course they are." He said as he crossed his arms into an X shape, concentrating ki before unfolding the arms, and pointed them at the energy blasts headed towards him.
"RYUUKOUSEN!"
The dragon headed, pink beam of energy shot out, overpowering the energy blasts, and sending them back with it towards the ship, which it tore a fairly large hole into. In fact, it was large enough for a person to fit into. Which was exactly what he did as he flew up into it, and began to fly through the ship, knocking out any troops he found on the way.
Eventually he came to a large arena inside the heart of the ship. Even weirder, why would anyone have an arena on what was - for all seeming intents and purposes - a warship?
"I see, you're no namekian. And in fact, quite the odd human too." A voice crackled over a loudspeaker, though Meraxa could sense there was someone up in the booth above the arena.
"If you want to leave now unscathed, I suggest you hand over that dragonball you stole." Meraxa said as he built up ki in one hand, before tossing a small yellow ball towards the right of the booth.
"AAIIEE~! Oh, please do forgive me kind sir. But the thing is, we found this wondrous artifact just on the ground, and-"
"You can cut the lies out before we begin. I know you had the elder's neck broken. You've made a lady very upset because of that." Meraxa said with a cold stare as a box lowered from the ceiling into the arena.
"Oh, I see. You actually
care about those worthless green skinned freaks. Well sorry kid, this magic trinket is MINE you hear me? MINE! And there is no force outside of the red ribbon army strong enough to take it from me!" The voice shouted before cutting off, the box in the arena opening up, to reveal what appeared to be... a woman? Whoever they were, their ki must've been really,
really low, because Meraxa couldn't even feel it. And this was supposed to be fighti-
"Ah!" Meraxa dodged to the side as the person shot a beam from their hand. A freaking BEAM?! How the heck did they pull that off? Their ki was way, way too low. Maybe they were simply suppressing it. If that was the case, it would probably be a maximum around his old strength when he first fought the Saibamen, no problem.
The woman subsequently strangling him quite easily proved that be a false assumption pretty quickly.
"H-how is she so strong?" Meraxa choked, as the loudspeaker snapped back into life.
"'She' would be better described as an 'it'. Its an android, one built after first contact with the Namekians as a countermeasure. The scientist - Doctor Slum or something like that - who built her was a bit of a depraved man, hence the female design."
"You're kidding right? Was he
that bad at getting a date?" Meraxa asked as he loosened the android's grip, and backed away from it.
"Yeah, though apparently he now has a daughter. Don't know how he ever got that one to work."
"I guess, sort of like how I ever brought myself to think this'll work." Meraxa retorted as he threw a rather dense ki blast at the android, which exploded into smoke. Hopefully the thing was using basic optics to see him, and nothing like thermals.
Oh, it definitely had thermals. The beam to Meraxa's chest was proof of that. He was sent flying into the side of the arena, where he hit the wall, and slowly fell down.
"Ugh... if you had this thing... why did you use a bomb of all things to threaten the namekians?" Meraxa asked, might as try and take advantage of the opportunity, and let the villain cliche of gloating over a 'helpless' opponent do the work for him.
"Are you dense or something? Do you honestly think someone would be able to develop a fighting android of this potential on Double A batteries? Please, this thing
IS the atomic bomb. It goes off if anyone defeats it, or if I order it to self-destruct. If anyone stops this thing, they get caught up in the subsequent blast. Pretty neat isn't it?"
There, now Meraxa had everything he needed to know.
He smirked as he got up, and walked up to the android.
"Trust me kid, theres no way you're gonna win. The thing is a fighting machine."
"Yeah? Well I had 'god' fried in a volcano." Meraxa said, referencing his adventures on planet Konats as his fist began to glow with an awesome power. He flickered out of sight, appeared behind the android faster than its sensors would hopefully follow, and picked it up on his free hand - thank god for the limited movement of humanoid machines made by the military.
"Take this - the love, anger, and all of the sorrow of the namekians you've harmed today! METEOR PUNCH!" He yelled as he punched the android, sending it flying through the ceiling of the ship, high up into the atmosphere, and watched at the subsequent atomic explosion. As long as it exploded up there, the worst that would be felt is a slight emp (which might lead to messed up weather) and minor fallout.
Meraxa then turned his attention to the booth with the leader of this 'red ribbon army' in it, and dashed up to it. He punched out the glass. And stood in front of the man, who was caressing (gross) the dragonball.
"No, no! You can't take it! Its mine! Its mine I tell you! Mine, mine, mi-!"
"Oh shut up." Meraxa said as he delivered a punch to the man's gut, and placed his foot in front of the dragonball, stopping it rolling away. He looked at the number of stars on it. Two of them. That left the 1 star, 3 star, 4 star, 5 star, and the 6 star to find.
As he picked up the ball, he considered what to do with the ship and its crew. He couldn't just leave them on the planet, or they might just try to pull the same stuff again. Toss the ship into space perhaps? It was possible, but he'd have to seal off the bulkheads leading to areas he'd torn holes in, or else everyone on board would be sucked out before they left the solar system. And of course, that emp meant that the automatic controls were off. He'd have to seal every single bulkhead
by hand. Might as well get started then...
An hour later, and he was done. The goons were all locked up in the giant mess hall (so they didn't starve), manual locks for doors had been closed, and the weapons had already been tossed towards the sun, expected to get there within a few days.
The dragonball meanwhile, was outside on the field, the wind blowing over its smooth surface as Meraxa dealt with one last detail.
"Huurrrum! C'mon!" Meraxa grunted as he began to lift up the ship. He had to be careful about this. If he just lifted it all at one point, the thing would just be crushed on him. No, he'd have to make it curve through the atmosphere before throwing it. He made his ascension at a minor speed at first, growing steadily faster the higher he went. Eventually, when he was high enough, he tossed the ship with all his might in the direction of Earth (if he remembered his stars right). Once the frictionless vaccuum of space increased their velocity to near-light speeds, they could comfortably spend the next few years waiting to get home, and not feel as if a month had passed. Good old theory of relativity.
He dashed back down to the planet surface, where he had left the dragonball. Instead of stopping however, he flew incredibly low, picked up the ball in one swipe, then headed back towards the village. Couldn't keep them waiting now could he?
Cargo was struggling to keep the dragonball out of everyone's grasp, but there was just so many of them.
"Give us that ball Cargo!"
"Yeah! That human doesn't deserve it!"
"We'll take it back to the senio elder, and then
he can decide your punishment for helping the outsider."
"Oh really? And here I thought this would do nicely as a sign of friendship." The namekians turned around to see Meraxa standing there, two star ball in hand.
"You... what are you doing here?"
"I might want this thing to help my friends, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna take it without asking." Meraxa said as he tossed the ball into the hands of a namekian.
"You idiot. What makes you think we won't just use this to bring back the elder!"
"Because if my knowledge is right, you can only bring back one person per wish with these balls. And the namekian balls have three wishes in total. Now the way I'm seeing it, I could probably get what I want done in one or two wishes. If I did, I'd be giving two people a chance at a life that was robbed from them. Then I'd probably leave. You'd just have to wait a month or so before using these things again. Heck, you could probably just ask your 'senior elder' to bring them back to active use again and again, so you could bring them back all at once. Am I right?"
The namekian flinched, unable to answer. Meraxa had just used the loopholes of the dragonballs to find a solution to both their problems afterall. Was he meant to just give the human the chance then?
"Oh come on, what more must he do for you people?" Cargo's voice raised above normal, as the little namekian floated up above the crowd.
"The two he wants to save are brothers, separated across the universe by a thousand years of time. We have a father who can just make more us if we want with a single egg - the task which this boy wants to perform could only be done with the dragonballs. I don't think the senior elder ever created the dragonballs to be our self-given right, and ours alone, did he?" Cargo's words struck deep, almost brought a tear to Meraxa's eye. And the namekian who held the 2 star ball had to admit, he was right. He held out the 2 star ball to Meraxa.
"Take it. Your friends are waiting right?" Meraxa took the ball from the namekian, and nodded.
"Yeah, they are. C'mon Cargo, lets go." Meraxa said as he a ball under each arm, and Cargo sat on his back, the two of them speeding of to the next ball.
"What do you think Nail?"
"I think that this boy may be the answer to our problems, Piccori."
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Subject: The army of blood appears! Fight for the dragonball! (2 star ball) 
Wed Nov 25, 2009 4:39 am