Three months passed after the defeat of Cravat. Torta, Regal, and Gaita were hospitalized for half that time, and then were sent home on bed rest. Of course, the three martial artists were terrible patients throughout their convalescence, always trying to get up and active, to work out, and even getting into fist fights over petty disagreements in the cramped hospital room. Getting them to follow bed rest protocols was equally challenging. Torta was forcibly moved to Puttee’s home to ensure he didn’t reinjure himself, alongside Gaita, while the Grand Elder spent much more of her time scolding Regal for overexerting herself in the search for Cola and the Earth Namekians.
Finally, it was the day that Torta and Gaita would get their casts removed. The two were in the living room of Puttee’s home, antsy and excited. Legging stood nearby as Puttee went to her lab to get her tools. “I can’t wait to get these things off!” Torta said, shaking his right leg and left arm. Those limbs had suffered the most severe damage from the Onion Ring assault, and were set in casts below the joints.
“You don’t get to talk about excited to me,” said Gaita, who had both legs and her left arm in full casts. She also still sported a bandage around her head. “I feel as strong as ever! I wish I could just bust this off of me!”
“I know,” said Legging. “The two of you did that enough times already when you were too injured. Be grateful your sister was able to make proper casts for the two of you!”
“Stupid grey goo slimy stuff,” mumbled Torta, scratching at the bandage covering the high tech cast.
“It’s called a reactive nanomachine polymer fill,” said Puttee, coming up the stairs with a special tool. “And it’s not slimy; it acts liquid in its inert state because, without forces to repel against—”
“We get it, you’re smart,” said Gaita. “You made little robots to be mean to us so we wouldn’t be mean to our bones. Just get them off!”
Puttee sighed. “I was hoping one of my own inventions would appreciate another of my inventions more.” She held up the tool, which emitted a short blue light. “Hold still, or I might make too close of contact with the laser cutter.” She first attended to Gaita, carefully moving the laser cutter down the cast on her left arm. The fill of the cast was grey, and initially sizzled red hot before flowing out like a goo.
As soon as her arm was free, Gaita lifted it up as fast as she could to enjoy the movement, and brushed her hand against the laser cutter. “Ow!” she yelped, pulling her hand to her mouth to cover the burn.
“Told you,” said Puttee. She cut open the casts on both legs, which Gaita patiently waited to be clear of the laser before moving. She stood up, jumped in the air, and kicked her legs around in whimsy. Legging giggled. With this done, Puttee turned to Torta, who looked like a puppy expecting a treat. She quickly removed his arm cast, as well, and despite seeing what happened to Gaita, he also burned his hand on the laser cutter. Puttee snickered and shook her head. “You’re both idiots.”
“Yeah, well, the casts still look like grey goo,” said Torta as his leg cast was removed.
“I didn’t say it didn’t look like that,” said Puttee. “It’s nanotech. Literally ‘grey goo.’”
Before this argument could go any further, a loud crash rocked the island. The group was spooked and looked around. “What was that?!” asked Legging.
“It sounded like it was nearby,” said Torta. “Just in time, too! Let’s go check it out!” Without further ado, he flew out the door, towards the location of the crash.
Gaita sighed. “You’d think he’d offer to bring one of you along,” she said as she knelt down. “Come on, I can carry one in my arms and one on my back.” Puttee walked in front of Gaita while Legging nervously sat piggyback. Gaita stood up, hooked her arms under Puttee’s shoulders, and took off after Torta.
Down below, on the beach at the bottom of the rocky cliff of their home island, Torta found a crater in the sand with a single alien inside. She had blue skin and white bio-armor covered in green jewels, a crown of horizontal horns around her head. Something about her faint chi reminded Torta of Cravat and Tarsa. He landed at her side and knelt down. “Hey,” he said gently. “Are you ok? You still feel alive.”
The alien stirred and opened her eyes. Upon seeing Torta, she sighed. “At least I made it to the right planet this time,” she said, weak.
“What’s your name?” Torta asked.
The alien nearly spoke, but then paused, her eyes widening on seeing Gaita and Puttee descend from the sky. “Jockey!?” Gaita called out in disbelief.
“You!” Jockey responded, sitting up. Gaita landed on the beach and set Puttee and Legging down. The sisters rushed to Jockey’s side. Jockey stared at Gaita. “Is that you, Spats? Did they manage to heal you?”
Gaita held her breath a moment. “This story, again. It’s not what you think, exactly.”
“Come on, let’s get her inside!” said Puttee. “It’s cool, mom, Torta. We know her. She was friends with Spats! Friends!”
“There’s no time for these pleasantries!” Jockey warned. “I couldn’t stop them, and they’re right on my tail. I’m sorry for bringing this battle to your world, but I have nowhere else to go, and I’ve done all I could.”
“What are you—?” Puttee started to ask, as a shadow fell over the beach. The group looked up to see a massive fleet of ships descending into the Earth’s atmosphere. The ships were heading north. Torta and Gaita exchanged looks, each detecting the massive chi in the lead ship.
“M-2 is here,” Jockey said. “I just wanted to do good, but it all went so wrong. This is the only place I can turn to for help, but I fear your planet is doomed to be destroyed or colonized, like the others left in their wake chasing me this past year.”
Torta kept looking back and forth between the fleet and Jockey. Eventually, he palmed his face and sighed. “Look, whatever,” he said. “We have to go stop that right now! We’ll talk later! You coming with us, Jockey?”
“Of course,” she said. “For better or worse, this is my last stand.”
“Then let’s follow them and get started,” Torta said, taking to the air. He turned back. “You coming, Gaita?”
Gaita kept staring at the fleet. Despite having waded through intergalactic war, she had never actually seen the full scope of an entire planet’s military in one place, especially this place. “So many people are going to…” she said.
“Less if we go now!” said Torta. “Don’t think about it too hard!”
“I can’t leave my mom and sister!” she said.
“Actually, I have to go check on something,” said Legging. “We’ll need it now more than ever! Puttee, you said you upgraded the vane?”
“Yeah, it’s fully equipped,” Puttee said. “A forcefield, infinite energy, and a plasma cannon for defense!”
“Then we need to go home, now!” Legging said. “Gaita, please, go save as many as you can! I love you, daughter!”
The family hugged. “I love you, too, mom! Puttee!” Gaita said, crying.
“I love you most!” said Puttee.
With the intense urgency of the still-passing army overhead, the group quickly transported Puttee and Legging back up the cliff and headed off. The warriors followed the fleet, which was heading north, while the royals took the vane up towards Silico at top speed. “I thought they were after you,” said Torta, looking back at Jockey. “Why aren’t they stopping here?”
“They’re headed for the world capitol,” said Jockey. “They plan to make it their headquarters, while the army splits up to assume control of the rest of the planet. They know exactly where I am, so there’s no need to look. There are also ships circling the planet in space, in case I fly off world again. Their main mission may be to capture me and what I carry, but make no mistake, they have no intention of moving on until they take over the Earth.”
Torta stared up at the fleet and sighed. “Just have to fight, just have to fight…” Torta kept repeating this mantra.
“What did you steal from them?” asked Gaita.
“In short, a messiah,” said Jockey.
The group felt Joma probing their minds from afar. “Hello, all,” the seer greeted them. “Kami Okome is aware of the situation. I looked into our fortunes this day, and it does not look good. We at Kamiland stand ready to protect the people of Earth, when the time comes.”
Jockey shook her head. “Kami Okome…a planetary guardian?” she asked. “I haven’t met many of them. They’re never much to count on. But the witch is accurate.”
“Really not getting the need for good vibes, are you?” asked Torta.
Within the hour, the warriors landed in Solstice, where the ships were forming up around the World Council building, ready to start their conquest. The area around the building was still largely in ruins, with lots of reconstruction still ongoing. The streets were filled with onlookers, some of whom recognized Torta from his battle there three months prior. Svenex flew up to Torta, Gaita, and Jockey, a disapproving murmur following her. “You made it!” Svenex said, relieved. Her eyes landed on Jockey, and she squinted. “I take it you’re what this is all about? You’re going to pay for bringing this here when it’s all over.”
“I only hope I can,” said Jockey. Svenex rolled her eyes. The crowd started to whisper more loudly, reacting to Svenex, the most hated politician in the world, and new rumors about the strange alien very negatively.
“I assume this is about you?” asked Regal, landing behind the group and looking at Jockey. She and the Grand Elder arrived from the east, where they had been searching through cave systems for signs of a hidden village.
Jockey turned to Regal. “I will offer my apologies to everyone on this world as many times as I need to for this disaster.”
“Save it,” said Regal, staring up at the ships. “The only thing that matters right now is winning. We’ll have words after this is over.”
Jockey looked down. “You’re all so optimistic.”
The lead ship of the armada, by far the largest, opened a doorway on the bottom. Down from this portal descended a tall blue man in a red vest, arching metal shoulder pads standing proudly on each side. The crowd went silent, awed by his presence. He quickly looked around until his eyes landed on Svenex. He approached her and pointed directly into her face. “You there,” he said, casually but loud enough for the crowd to hear. “I’ve been consuming information about your planet in the past few hours of our approach. As a leader of your people, I want to tell you that this world now belongs to me, Admiral Remmha, supreme commander of the Machine Mutants of M-2. Any resistance will be considered an act of aggression against us.”
Svenex was terrified. This moment, far more than even the ransacking of the capitol by the Bio-Androids, destroyed any and all credibility her vision of a united, peaceful world had. She still took the opportunity this moment provided. “Like we’d ever surrender to a group of low-level thugs like you!”
Remmha laughed raucously. He snapped his fingers, and troops descended from every ship in the fleet, blotting out the sky. “I’m not interested in your surrender!” Remmha said. He turned towards the gathered warriors, already struck by the sheer scale of the army descending from above. “Looks like these are the only ones worth fighting, men!”
In an instant, Torta charged at Remmha with everything he had. The admiral was impressive enough, with an indomitable presence and massive chi, but his defenses were beyond what Torta expected. He charged Angus Patties and formed a medium order of Onion Rings right away, ready to end this fight as fast as possible. Remmha had power at least equal to Cravat, so he couldn’t waste time.
Jockey followed Torta in lunging at Remmha, but was intercepted by an impossibly fast blur. She looked up to see a bestial Machine Mutant, orange and with a long, crescent-shaped skull. He raised his sickle-ended hand and snickered. “Already losing parts, are we, Jockey?”
She looked back to see the end of her tail had been cut. “Sickly…” she seethed. With a burst of concentration, she changed directly into her third form, the transition regenerating her lost tail. Smiling sadistically, she charged in at Sickly and let all her rage out without limit.
Gaita immediately flew off to protect as many people as she could. The Machine Mutant soldiers were tearing through crowds with machine guns and missiles, no interest in quarter for the innocent noncombatants. Before she could fire off a round of Waders to tear through the soldiers, she was knocked back by a ball-shaped Machine Mutant elite. “Stop right there!” called out another, purple Machine Mutant. His design had a similar car aesthetic as Soz, but he was clearly a sleeker, newer model. Behind him were two others, a hulking truck-like soldier and a perfected drum guard unit. “The Phi Squad will put a stop to any who stand in the way of Remmha’s vision! Span, help Brace end that one quickly!”
“Aye!” said the colorful, long-limbed ball. The towering truck jumped down to join his comrade, each taking a stance. Brace initially attacked Gaita alone, and was able to push her back. Though small, this elite soldier was enough to overpower Kerchief. Span rolled his neck. Above, the other members of the Phi Squad flew off to search for other quarry.
Regal wanted to join her allies in their fights, but felt a duty to protect the Grand Elder, freezing her in place. “Please, use a Temple door to get to safety!” she called to her mentor.
“Of course!” said the Grand Elder, disappearing. As soon as she disappeared, a massive Machine Mutant landed in the spot she once occupied. It was green, with darker armored plating and purple jewels adorning its body. Unlike most of the Machine Mutants, Regal could feel chi from this one, a chi made entirely out of hatred and bloodlust. With nothing holding her back anymore, Regal charged in at this behemoth.
Svenex was paralyzed by fear for a moment, feeling everything she had built in her life blowing away like smoke. The ground shook, shaking Svenex loose from her fear. She turned to see a massive, saurian robot charging across her path. It spotted her and immediately swiped at her with its tail. Svenex barely had time to block, knocked all the way through a newly repaired concrete wall in the plaza. This dino was easily stronger than any of the Bio-Android soldiers she struggled against a few months ago. Angry with her own inadequacy once more, she got up and charged at it.
Svenex struggled against the dinosaur, spending most of her time getting bashed around. It took all she had to dodge the truly lethal blows. Every once in a while, she was able to throw a Fizzy Bomber at the beast, but the blasts only seemed to anger it. Seeing the people running for any safety they could find gave her the strength to stand back up and charge in again. Every second this beast was thrashing her was another second it wasn’t mindlessly stomping over the Earthlings she was unable to protect. The next stomp smashed Svenex into the ground and took her breath. The dino then stomped several more times and ground her into the dirt.
Sickly kept slashing away at Jockey, who spent more time on the defensive than she wanted. Unrestrained as she was in this form, Jockey was overeager for the chance to rip Sickly apart for everything he’d done to her and countless others. His just too swift movements stole away her chance to focus on her own attacks, fueling her rage and making her even sloppier. This long into the fight, Sickly was getting in several deep gashes through her bio-armor with his sickle hands. The fog of Jockey’s bloodlust was clearing as she lost her own blood, replaced instead by the fog of weakness. An actual killing blow could come any moment. Sickly managed to grab Jockey’s throat, and with a clear target, aimed his blade at her skull. She dodged her head to the side, and managed to repeat a couple more times, but did not think she had many left.
Gaita had been struggling to keep up with Brace even before Span joined the battle. With their power combined using exceptional teamwork, Gaita had no room for a counterattack. Soon enough, they had her beaten down and at their mercy. Brace hit Gaita towards Span, who stomped her into the ground. He stomped down harder, driving Gaita into the rock below. “Remember what we said about that forcefield of yours,” Span reminded her. “I can ricochet blasts into the crowd all day.”
Regal and her Samael kept up the pressure against the titan before them, but the machine could not be deceived by the lookalike. So consumed by a desire to kill every living thing around it, this massive Machine Mutant tracked only Regal’s physical form, completely dismissing the incorporeal Samael. Its power and speed were enough to keep up with the teleportation between locations, and so Regal was taking a savage beating that she could not escape from.
Despite pulling out all the stops, Torta had trouble doing any real damage to Remmha. The admiral proved to be even stronger than Cravat, and his precise eyes often gave him insight to dodge Torta’s intended strike range before he threw a punch through an Onion Ring. Whenever he did hit home, Remmha’s body felt like punching solid metal. The admiral’s steely fists beat Torta’s body into oblivion.
“You’re just a pup with fancy toys!” Remmha declared, axe kicking Torta into the ground below. Remmha flew down, slamming a knee into Torta’s gut, causing him to cough up blood. With a smile, Remmha generated hammers of chi over his hands and started beating Torta mercilessly, each hit driving Torta farther into the earth. “You’re the only real fighters on this planet, aren’t you?! Once I’m done with you, I’ll find the rest of the Earthlings who think they can hide from me, and I’ll make sure they know who’s in charge here! There is no hope for your world!”
A final hammer blow slammed Torta into an underground stream. Remmha stuck his hand down to fish him out, but found nothing. Looking around, he saw that all his troops were confused, without targets. There were no Earthlings around, anywhere his army could see. The admiral cursed. “Whatever magic this is, I don’t like it! Find them all!”
Torta opened his eyes in a field. Looking down at him were Puttee and Legging, who were relieved to see him conscious. “Good, you’re not dead yet!” Puttee sighed. “We barely got everyone. Hopefully we can figure something out!”
Confused, Torta sat up and looked around. He saw Regal, Gaita, Legging, Svenex, Jockey, and the Grand Elder with him, as well as many thousands of people in a large, antique city. “Where am I?” he asked.
“The Crown Realm!” said Legging. “This is what I wanted to check on, an old legend. You probably heard, how they said that when Silico ruled the Earth, its domain was wider than the Earth was round. I don’t know how or why we have our own pocket space, but I opened it up as an evacuation shelter.”
“Okome, Joma, and Poboy were busy using Temple doors to save as many people as possible,” Puttee said. “He kept warping them from all over, and before we could ask, he was sending people our way. So, here we’re housing about half of…the surviving…” She looked away.
Torta looked up to his friends. “We failed, huh?”
“Indeed,” said Regal, wiping blood from her brow. “Even if we were strong enough to defeat our opponents, their sheer numbers guaranteed mass casualties.”
“We did our best,” said Gaita. She began to cry. “And it could never have been enough!”
Torta looked over and saw Joma standing on a small, makeshift platform, speaking out to the thousands of humans in the Crown Realm. Her movements and posture did not look like her own. “Okome has been talking through her,” said Puttee. “I guess Poboy is doing the same somewhere, so Okome can reach everyone at once. They’re just about done explaining our entire history to the Earth, for as much as it helps explain what’s been happening the past few years and why…” She paused. “We’re not just running around doing our own thing anymore. Everyone knows.” The crowd was hushed in awe, hearing the last few details of the heroes’ harrowing tales. Etched on their faces were looks of fear, anger, confusion, and sadness, both from the attack and the knowledge that the event was brought on by a small group of people acting outside of public view.
That night, Torta went downstairs to the living room. He, Regal, Svenex, and the Grand Elder were sharing a house in the Crown Realm. His roommates and the royal family, staying in the neighboring house, were gathered together for dinner. His body was still sore all over from Remmha’s beating, and it hurt to move. He sat down on a two-seater next to Svenex and sighed. “This is life now, huh?”
“We have enough to last us a few months, at least,” said Legging, taking a sip of her soup. “Once everyone…adapts to this situation, we’ll try to get farming underway.”
Everyone sat in silence. Torta picked up his plate and started eating, the only form of comfort he had. Reaching out with his senses, Torta could not detect any chi outside of a certain radius, none of it the overwhelmingly powerful chi of Remmha. The strange peace of this place felt like a fragile egg, just waiting for the Machine Mutants to figure out how to bust through, as Conch once did.
“Does anyone want to talk about what to do next?” asked Puttee, breaking the silence. “My mind is always running, but I don’t want to make you talk about the future if you’re not ready.”
“We already know what we have to do,” said Svenex. “We’re alive, we’re living off rations, and we have an army to expel. I just…I can only hope there’s time.”
Puttee looked down at her plate. “Well, I’ll see what I can do,” she mumbled.
“I don’t suppose we can remake Porunga and wish our way out of this?” asked Torta.
“I cannot gather the energies needed to create a new Porunga in this pocket space,” said the Grand Elder. “In any case, the best that would get us is a reprieve; it’s out of my power or Porunga’s to vanquish any of these devils.”
“How could she do this?” asked Gaita. “Jockey could have called, and we could have met them in the stars somewhere, or something.”
“We could never have wrangled all the major players of M-2 into a trap in space,” said Regal.
“I…I know,” said Gaita. “That’s not really why I’m mad, but I can’t help thinking there should have been another option. Jockey cares deeply about all of this, I can tell, but not in the way that matters. I mean, you heard her. ‘This is my last stand, I’ll apologize all you want.’ She’s not sorry for what she’s done to us; she’s sorry about the circumstances.” Gaita remembered the battle on Monmassu, from Spats’s perspective, and how she washed away her guilt from ordering Alpha and Bravo to steal energy from the Monmassu Namekians by elevating “the mission” above all else. She looked to Legging and wondered how many more times she could have pulled off that mental trick, and over what stakes.
“You don’t know the first thing about her,” said Legging. “It’s too soon to be so harsh, even in all this. None of you have had to keep running from this army like she has. We can’t blame her for seeking help.”
“She’s a scared kid, running away from her problems,” said Puttee. “Bringing her problems to her friends’ doorstep, hoping things simply work out through sheer effort.”
Torta looked at Puttee, who averted her eyes. He felt a sense of dread, wondering what would have happened had they been a day later trying to confront the Silico Androids. Torta looked at Regal, remembering her stand in the valley, a shadow of his own fate in another life.
Regal gulped her water. “I’m going to start training,” she announced. “A rematch awaits us, no matter what else we feel or do. Join me when you’re ready to put in the work.” The door slammed behind her.
“She can never just say she wants to be alone, huh?” asked Torta.
“She’s not wrong,” said Svenex. “I just…I’ll take a day off.”
Torta gulped down the rest of his food. “I’m going for a walk, clear my head.” He got up and left as well.
Outside, in the darkness of the night, the fear, sadness, and despair of the huddled citizens of Earth was oppressing. Torta felt it, too, but he couldn’t sit still in his feelings. Everywhere he went, the people who looked his way saw him as a threat, as a pox that brought disaster to the Earth. It couldn’t be helped, as far as he could see. The revelations about he and his friends’ adventures were still fresh in their minds, and they had to blame someone. Torta blamed himself, as well; he was convinced that if he had gotten into gear, he could have put up more of a fight to Remmha, at the very least.
Out away from the many rows of homes, in a tucked away field near a forest, Torta found Jockey. She was sitting, as if in meditation, but her heart was not at peace. Torta could see as much from her posture, without overhearing her. “No, I know!” she muttered. “I don’t have time to do this patiently! I need to fix this mess! I conquered my anger until now, so why…?”
“Whatcha doing?” Torta asked, right behind Jockey.
The Frost Demon flinched. “I…I was just…What are you doing here?”
“Taking a walk. Sounds like you’re having some trouble with your heart.”
“This doesn’t concern you.”
Torta felt a flash of anger. “You don’t get to say anything you do doesn’t concern the entire Earth right now.”
“I…I’m sorry, you’re right.”
Torta sat across from her. “What’s all this about?”
Jockey couldn’t meet Torta’s eyes. “Everything that’s happened, everything since my brother left home…it’s all my fault. I can’t control myself, and I always get into trouble. I’m cursed, and I don’t even have the common decency to be the one affected by the consequences.”
“I’ll say, if today is any indication.”
“It’s ok if you want to unload your anger on me. I know I deserve it.” Tears fell from her eyes.
Torta sighed. “I am angry with you, but I’m not going to take it out on you. I just want to understand why this all happened.”
“Like I said, I took something from them. I did it to sabotage a deal my brother was going to make with Remmha, but I wasn’t able to get away clean. I…I can’t stop running, but I don’t want to keep going.”
“I heard a little about you from Puttee and Gaita. Why do you have to fight your brother, alone? Why not get some allies together, or let someone else handle this? I don’t recall you sticking your nose into the Saiyan-Demon War.”
Jockey paused. “It’s my fault my brother is this way, I know it is. I have to stop him. I have to clean up my mess. But I can’t control myself, and I just make a bigger mess. And if I stop now…”
Torta studied her face. “I won’t ask how this is your fault, if you don’t want to talk about it, but it sounds like you’re dealing with a lot of guilt. My advice? Guilt is just your sense of control taking over. We all have these rules in our heads, how the world is supposed to work. Guilt is a good way to remind you why you should stick to those rules, and which ones you value the most. But feeling guilty all the time, for everything, that’s just ego. You don’t get anything out of punishing yourself for being who you are, except for the satisfaction of feeling like you can control the whole world if you act the right way.”
“This isn’t a matter of ego! I was born with more power than I could ever wield, and I’ve always been unable to control it! That’s why I look this way, why I made three false faces to hobble myself. I have to be good, and at least direct the power at the right places.”
“You know, I fight my best when I’m having fun. I’m sure I would have lasted longer against Remmha if I were having a blast, but I was fighting out of anger and fear. It’s only natural I lost. And that used to make me feel bad, like I was sick in the head. Who has fun when everyone’s life is on the line?”
“That is deranged.”
Torta laughed. “We all fight for different reasons. You can feel whatever you feel when you fight, but you’ll never be your strongest until you embrace your reason for being in that battle. I stopped worrying about the details, because it doesn’t matter how much fun I have as long as I protect everyone. You can’t put yourself on trial and expect to live freely.”
Jockey met his eyes. “Why are you talking to me?”
“Like I said, I want to know why this happened. This is probably my worst quality, because by all rights I should kick you to the hordes and be done with it. But I can’t find it in myself to be angry like that. I just can’t stop seeing the best in people, and despite your mistakes and shortcomings, you’re far from the worst.”
Jockey looked away in guilt.
“Well, food for thought. No matter how anyone feels about you, you’re one of the most powerful warriors on the planet right now, and we’ll need you in the coming fight. If you’ve got more throttle you haven’t let out yet, then good luck in…fixing the clutch? Why did I pick a car metaphor?” Torta got up and chuckled to himself as he walked away.
Jockey turned back around. “He’s just ok,” she muttered.
While the citizens of Earth explored their lives in the Crown Realm and figured out what jobs needed doing, the warriors began training as best they could. There was no telling what kind of time limit they were operating under, and they had a lot of work to fit in. The first morning, Puttee had disappeared from the house to go search for whatever supplies she could, muttering about an idea to fix everything. One morning, five days after arriving, Torta walked outside to start his day. He found Svenex arguing with a man he hadn’t met before, a man with long black hair and a denim jacket.
“You know how dangerous that is!” Svenex said. “How shortsighted!”
“There’s nothing you can say to sway me,” he said. “I refuse to go along with your wishes.”
“What’s up?” Torta asked. The man gave Torta a harsh look and left.
Svenex shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
“You know him?”
“He’s…a friend from back home, after you left the dojo. I talk shop with him sometimes.”
Torta couldn’t put his finger on why that story sounded suspicious to him.
“Come on, let’s go practice,” Svenex said.
The two made their way to their practice field, a clearing on the outskirts of town. The field was about fifty feet on every side, the grass flattened for ease of movement. On the way, Gaita joined them. They found Regal going through her forms slowly, meditatively, while the Grand Elder looked on from a rock perch. Regal did not stop in her movements as she noted her comrades’ approach. “Let’s get started!” said Torta.
“Not so fast!” Puttee called out, rushing to the field with a rather large backpack. “I have a solution!”
“Solution to what?” Svenex asked.
“I mean, time?” Puttee put down her backpack and removed from it a set of orange, rubbery body suits. “Ok, put these on!”
“Over our clothes?” Gaita asked.
“Of course not, silly.”
“We’re in a field and you’re asking us to get naked, you dolt!” Svenex snapped. “You could have given these to us before we left.”
“Just turn around, you baby,” Puttee chided.
Svenex rolled her eyes, and they landed on Regal already halfway undressed. “Your strange compunctions with nudity always confused me,” the Namekian said. Gaita grabbed a suit and quickly dashed off towards the nearby woods. Torta briefly locked eyes with Svenex before the two turned away from each other. Puttee giggled and covered her eyes.
Once everyone was changed and reassembled, Puttee pulled out a tank with a hose from her pack. “I’m going to fill all your suits with this stuff,” she explained. She walked over to Torta and placed the hose nozzle into an aperture on the suit’s neck. He felt a liquid being poured into the suit, filling a space between an inner layer and the outer. “This is the same reactive nanomachine polymer fill I used to make your casts. Fortunately, I found enough parts here to make them all. When used to make your casts, they were set to repel all of the force you applied, stopping your movements in their tracks. But if I set them to a lower percentage of force, then you’ll still be able to move, and it’s an intensive resistance workout.” She stopped filling Torta’s suit once there was a five millimeter fill of the nanomachines across his body. She then went down the line, discussing various advanced technical details about the nanomachines.
Once Puttee had finished with Svenex’s suit at the end of the line, the tank was empty. “Good, just enough! So now, a demonstration.” She went back to Torta and grabbed his wrist, where a small keypad was located. “If I set this to one-hundred percent, he won’t be able to move, just like the cast.” She set it so, and released Torta’s hand. He was frozen in place like a statue, and no matter how he tried, he couldn’t move, like being cast in concrete. “So now, let’s set it to ninety-five percent.” She reset the suit, and upon letting go of Torta’s arm, he winced in pain. His arm was falling very slowly, imperceptibly, the gravity pulling it down being heavily resisted by the nanomachines filling the suit. It felt like pulling steel. Regal smiled and nodded. “Of course, be careful if you set it that high, because it’ll take you hours to turn it off. Feel free to play around with it and figure out how you want to train!”
“Do you mind…?” Torta wheezed, barely able to breathe in the suit.
“Oh, sure.” Puttee turned the fill down to fifty percent.
Suddenly, a massive weight lifted off his entire body, and he began moving at half speed. “Woo!” Torta cheered. “This stuff is going to be killer! Thanks, Puttee!”
“No problemo!” Puttee waved and left.
Torta turned to the group and slowly put up his dukes. “Ok, someone spar with me!”
Three months passed. The warriors trained diligently with their resistance suits, able to put themselves through two or three times the amount of work they’d normally do in that time thanks to the nanomachines. Torta and Regal also spent time alone to better concentrate on their heavenly techniques. Puttee took to developing technical support for the human survivors as they started to adapt to life in the Crown Realm. Legging was able to become a leader among the people in that time, as they looked to her authority over the realm itself and found a caring, capable queen. Jockey stayed far away from everyone, focusing entirely on herself and her pursuit of self-mastery.
Torta awoke on an ominous morning. He went down to the living room to see Regal and Svenex already awake and waiting for him. They all traded glances and nodded. On their first day of training, they agreed that this three-month mark would be the day they challenged M-2 once more. It was a compromise between giving themselves a lot of time to train in relative safety and acting fast enough that humanity would not have to cower for too long. Postponing their return was discussed, but everyone agreed they were ready to get back in the fight. The trio ate and prepared themselves quietly, bracing for the coming onslaught. Unlike before, it would only be them out in the open, facing all of M-2 and the high officers.
Once ready, Torta, Regal, and Svenex departed, making way for the exit. As they went, some of the survivors followed, sensing that today was different. Soon after gathering at the exit, Gaita flew down to meet them, bringing Jockey along for the ride. The warriors waited in silence as the crowd murmured, some excited for the possibility of the army’s expulsion and some fearful of their failure. Torta noted the man in the denim jacket, standing at the front of the crowd, his gaze as harsh as ever.
Legging arrived, along with Puttee and the Grand Elder. “Hello,” Legging said, clearly fearful for what her daughter was about to subject herself to. “Thank you for…for fighting for us today. I wish you all the luck in the world.” Legging wiped tears from her eyes. Puttee took her hand. The Grand Elder gave Regal a reassuring look. Legging approached the doorway and placed her hand on the arch. The glass door began to glow and shimmer like water. Gaita hugged her mother and sister. “Thanks for letting me say goodbye,” Legging sobbed.
“I promise I’ll come back!” Gaita said.
Torta turned to the crowd. “We’ll take care of everything!” he yelled.
“I know my word means little,” Svenex added, “but I promise you won’t be trapped in hiding forever!” She locked eyes with the man in the denim jacket before turning around.
After giving the Grand Elder one last smile, Regal turned to the door. “Let’s go.”
The heroes departed, walking in the outside world for the first time in three months. On the other side, the heroes stood in the flower-filled valley behind the Silico royal castle. There in that field was the amassed army of M-2, the various officers standing by with their supreme commander, and droves of combat units swarming in the sky, chasing down a person trying to fight them alone. Smiling, Remmha turned to the heroes. “I’m glad you finally decided to show yourselves!” he sneered. “Our scouts noted a large number of Earthlings popping up in this area the other day, including you lot. You’ve kept me waiting long enough! I will crush you so that my dominion over this world shall not be questioned!”
Torta rolled his neck. “You saved me a lot of time and energy, too! Come at me, bro!” He and Remmha charged at each other fiercely, wasting no time in their battle. The green giant and the dinosaur rushed towards the remaining heroes, and were intercepted by Regal and Svenex, respectively. Jockey flew at Sickly, ready to test her new limits. Gaita calmly took her stance while the Phi Squad formed up around her.
This time around, Torta was determined to enjoy the fight against his most difficult opponent yet. He could tell it would be a long battle, but after his training, the admiral’s steely body felt more molten than solid. He foresaw a tough road ahead, and the punishment Remmha dealt him was still massive. Torta could not predict how the fight would end, and so he took a deep breath and laughed. Remmha growled and hammered him hard on the back of his head. “How dare you laugh!” he said. “You delayed my conquest by two whole days!”
Torta was more shocked by that statement than his concussion. “Two days?” he asked. Remmha clocked him across the jaw, refusing to answer such an obvious question. Though Torta was now quite alarmed with the mismatched timeline, he put it aside for the moment. It wouldn’t change the battle he was in, or the joy of seeing how far he’d come in his training. He had to get in gear this time.
In the skies, the vast armies of M-2 were rotating in and out as needed to combat their attacker. Though this fighter was of notable power, Remmha didn’t want to waste his or his officer’s energies on a single fighter, and so ordered the footsoldiers to drown them in wave after wave of fire. However, Tarsa, smashing and blasting away, was swimming confidently in this sea. As bullets, missiles, and lasers whizzed past, Tarsa would shift and stretch their body around the projectiles as much as block or dodge them. It was a much needed edge, given the near guarantee of an attrition loss Tarsa went into the battle with. There was no other option for the Bio-Android, given their lack of participation in the initial invasion. The world needed to know how important they were to its survival. Blasting out a huge Mitochondria, Tarsa blew apart a hundred soldiers. Twice as many swooped in to replace them. Tarsa smirked.
Svenex blocked a tail swipe by the dinosaur and felt her arms sting, her feet firmly in place. She chuckled and punched it in the face, knocking out a tooth. “Guess who’s not just a punching bag anymore?” she asked. She continued her assault, beating the dino back.
Machine Mutant soldiers opened fire on Svenex, causing her to take cover. “Support Deeno!” said the lead combat unit.
Svenex fired off a series of Fizzy Bombers at her interlopers. “Wait, Deeno the dino? Seriously?” Deeno stomped her into the ground. Svenex lifted the foot up into the air as she stood. “They did you so dirty with that name. Good thing you won’t be needing it much longer.”
Gaita traded blows with Brace and Span once more, finding their intricate teamwork full of holes for someone at her new speed. She picked them apart with ease and tossed them back at their apparent leader. “You wanna waste more time holding back?” she asked.
The leader in purple scowled with his cyclopean eye. “Plane, let’s finish this all together.”
“Yes, Captain Lug!” the drum unit said. Now united, the entire Phi Squad attacked Gaita, moving as a single front. The combined teamwork of all four, plus the notable power of Lug, made the fight much more difficult for Gaita. After her long months of training to deal with their teamwork, she saw them as a single opponent, and so felt no fear in facing the group alone. She knew she was at a disadvantage in power in this situation, but she kept her wits about her. All she needed was to survive long enough to pick apart their weakest member.
Jockey was holding back quite a bit during her battle with Sickly. Though in her third form, she was no longer consumed by bloodlust, and instead kept up an iron defense. Sickly zipped around her with great speed, slashing away at her armor and muscles. “What, no effort from you today?” he asked. “I will kill you like this! Give me a fight!”
Jockey closed her eyes and smiled. “Thanks for waiting,” she said. “I needed a moment in battle to focus my mind. It’s the first time in years I’ve appeared naked to the world.” With a grunt in effort, her form shifted once more. She shrank in height and muscle mass, returning to her original stature, and the majority of her armor melted into her skin. Soon, she appeared as a blue-skinned alien, a white crown of horizontal horns completed with a green gem topping her head. Her forearms and shins bore similar gems, embedded directly into her skin. Jockey looked across her body, fearful but satisfied that she still felt like her rational, controlled self. “I take it you know this face? What it means?”
Sickly hissed. “So what if you’ve assumed your original form! You’re still no match for me!” He charged in at Jockey, only to swipe his blade through an afterimage.
“It’s not just the form,” Jockey said from behind Sickly. She grabbed his tail and slammed him down into the ground. “I’m responsible for my great, natural born power, and I’m not cowering from that burden any longer. This is who I truly am!”
Regal continued making passes at the green giant with her Samael, beating into its armor. With her greater speed and power, she could outmaneuver the robot with her teleportation trick, which gave her an edge against the machine. However, as expected, this was not enough alone. The giant was incredibly resilient, did not respond to anything like pain, and was singularly focused by its intense hatred of life such that it could not be distracted.
Moving in for her new strategy, Regal punched at the giant’s chest. Before making contact, she switched places with her Samael. The giant followed Regal her new location at its left, but the Samael kept going with the punch, its fist phasing through the machine’s chest. Once elbow deep, Regal finally found her target, and the giant shuddered from the strange feedback. Regal smiled. “It works, and my hunch was correct,” she said. She had suspected the giant had something like a heart or soul, since it was generating chi, and so she had worked to improve her Samael so that it could attack the chi of an opponent. She struck the giant across the head while her Samael dove through its core, dealing twice the damage.
The Machine Mutant soldiers continued their battle with Tarsa, the vast majority of them remaining. A single enemy was not going to annihilate a whole planet’s worth of soldiers in a night. The remainder stood guard, watching for human survivors to kill. Their orders changed as an orbital scout sent a concerning message, detailing a vast collection of ships heading for Earth. These ships opened fire against the orbital perimeter, and so the soldiers watching the ground turned to the sky, awaiting the enemy. Ships were shot down as the fleet entered the atmosphere, the occupants jumping out to continue the flight on their own. The word was passed down to Remmha, just as the leader of this fleet landed on the battlefield. “Saiyans always got your back, Earth!” Dragon called out. The Saiyan army swarmed the skies, doing battle with the army of M-2 and drawing them away from the valley behind the Silico castle. Dragon looked around the battlefield. “Oh, I guess it’s just my friends.”
Tarsa looked around in shock, seeing the vast army of Saiyans flying the skies with them. “Hey, who said I needed any help here?!” Tarsa asked, indignant. “I’m the only protector the Earth needs!”
“Oh, don’t be so—whoa!” said Velvet, turning to Tarsa, who shifted their torso like a noodle to avoid a laser beam. “What are you? Are you made of rubber?”
“I’m made of justice! I’ll let this slide this time, as long as you all remember who’s house you’re walking into!”
Velvet laughed. “Whatever. You’ve got more guts than most. Keep up the good work!”
Tarsa was flustered as they continued smashing Machine Mutants.
The heroes of Earth were elated to see Dragon and the Saiyans return to them in their hour of need. Span and Plane jumped out at the Saiyan President, keeping him from interfering with Remmha’s battle. Dragon blocked their strikes with a grin and breathed a massive gale of fire over the two, a gale that covered Lug and Brace, as well, while Gaita jumped out of the way.
“O-oh, wow!” Gaita said, delighted and nervous. “You’re here for me…to help me!”
“I’ll always come running if you need me!” he said. Gaita felt her stomach flutter. “You wanna even these odds a little more?”
The Phi Squad surrounded the two warriors and attacked in unison, all their strikes blocked. “I think it’s tipping things in our favor, really,” Gaita said.
Unable to contain his joy to see Dragon return to fight with him, Torta turned up the pressure on Remmha, grinning ear to ear. A friend coming over made things feel like a party, and Torta was finally having fun. Remmha growled at the seemingly carefree Earthling and burst out with a wave of explosive chi. “I’ve had enough of your attitude!” Remmha declared. “I’ll make you fight me like your species’ fate depends on it!” His body began to glow teal, and his clothes melted away. Once the light died down, Remmha was revealed as a being of pure metal, his skin a shining chrome. “I don’t need a metal utopia to merge with to defeat the likes of you, just my full power! Now die!”
Remmha charged at Torta with renewed spirit, his body once more rigid steel. With a furious barrage, he beat Torta down into the ground. Reshaping his hand into a hammer, Remmha dropped down and began pounding the Earth. The third strike was repelled by an Onion Ring, throwing Remmha backwards. Torta rose from the dirt, his fists covered in Angus Patties. “Alright, let’s get things started for real!”
Regal kept slogging through the behemoth. The machine kept recovering from attacks with unusual speed, its hatred refueling any loss of power in a heartbeat. However, as time went on, it was less and less able to rebound, and Regal could see her victory growing nearer with each pass. Her Samael behind the giant, she kicked its head to drive it back and landed behind it. She switched places with her Samael to tackle its knees, and her Samael jumped through its back. The giant shuddered from the feedback, clearly shaken.
Next came a swing of its arms so fast, Regal couldn’t dodge. She was knocked back into a rock. When she got up, she saw the giant’s chi skyrocketing as it started to grow to twice its height, its armor growing significantly. “Oh, great,” Regal muttered as it charged back in, stronger and faster than before. “This thing’s far better than the kaiju.” With a grunt, Regal grew in height to match the giant, her Samael following suit.
Svenex had felt much more confident when the battle started. Deeno was scarily resilient, always fighting full force no matter what Svenex threw at it. She had been able to cause more superficial damage, but its main body was barely dented. She was grateful to be keeping pace, at least. She gritted her teeth and caught its claw as it swiped for her head. As the jaws came down at her, she kicked Deeno’s head to the side and jumped onto its neck. Riding it like a mechanical bull, she could feel through her legs that there was definite damage in the joints of the neck. She sighed in relief as Deeno flipped in the air and landed on top of her.
The air whistled constantly as Sickly slashed through it at blinding speed. Jockey thought herself physically superior to the Machine Mutant, yet he remained elusive to her, with his incredible agility. It frustrated her that she could not catch an enemy that looked so slow. She then chuckled at her own slowness. “What, lost it?” asked Sickly.
Jockey caught his blade in her hand. “I just got it back, actually. I forgot what I was capable of, after all these years.” She landed a few strikes on Sickly, taking his breath. His worries finally showed on his face, but he did not relent in his assault.
Gaita dodged an attack by Lug and threw Brace into him. “How are you here?” she asked Dragon.
“We saw the M-2 army headed for Earth a little while ago,” Dragon said as he weaved around Span’s attack. “We were settled in enough, and we couldn’t abandon Earth. I can’t apologize enough we couldn’t get here two days ago, though.”
Gaita kicked Plane in the head. “Two days?”
Lug screamed out in anger. “How dare you take the Phi Squad so lightly! Men, form up!” The Phi Squad converged on Lug’s location, merging together into a single entity with a mishmash of features from the whole squad. “Now face the Giga Hyper Blaster Phi!”
“Overcompensating mu—” Dragon started to say, before the Blaster slammed him into the ground. Gaita rushed in to recover, but the Blaster knocked her away, as well. The two got up and traded glances, knowing the real fight had just begun.
Remmha’s anger continued to rise with each passing second. Though he estimated Torta’s raw power was far below his own, the Earthling continued to outmaneuver and overpower him using his Onion Rings. Unlike before, Torta was too fast for Remmha to dodge predicted attack angles. To boost his chances of getting a shot in, Torta took to firing chi blasts through rings as he pulled his punches and kicks, psyching Remmha out. On top of everything, Remmha could tell Torta was more resilient than before, no longer breaking his own body to use the rings. That resilience had been on display before, when Remmha had trouble breaking his body at the outset. The real sting, though, was the arrogance Torta showed in waiting so long to start using the Onion Rings in the first place. Flustered as he was, Remmha felt their respective mindsets were somehow reversed from what they should have been. The admiral could not accept this, or that his budding empire could potentially crumble on this backwater rock.
The giant’s power continued to rage, but the fire was dying down. Regal whittled away at its defenses, finding it a much more manageable enemy with their heights matched. All over, she had dealt serious blows to the robot, its armor broken up, its joints weakening. Each pass of her Samael created further damage across its entire system. She punched the gem at its core, finding it the one unbreakable point. “You would have been a tough enemy, if I had to attack that core from the outside,” she said. She and her Samael drew a Michael. As Regal distracted the giant with her swing, her Samael planted its sword through the giant’s core, slashing it in two. After all the previous attacks, this devastating blow destroyed the giant’s core, sending massive waves of its own energy through its whole body. It fell to the ground as it reverted to its former size, a victim of its own overblown hatred.
Svenex felt woozy on her feet after boxing with Deeno for so long. Though the beast was always fighting in a blind rage, its slowly weakened knees and ankles gave it a drunk sway, as well. For the last few minutes, Svenex had been setting up a Soda Pop in the joints of Deeno’s armor. Upon activating it, she found her chi insufficient to break through the plating to properly form the bomb. “Ok, plan B,” she muttered. She watched the way Deeno’s neck was starting to sway as it moved. With a flash of light, she engulfed herself in a fiery aura and charged in. Deeno slashed at her, corralling her into position to bite her. Before it could sink its teeth into her hips, Svenex caught the two sides of the mouth and held them apart. She weighed her options and sighed. Ducking down as fast as possible, Svenex escaped the jaws as they shut, landed, rolled to her shoulders, and kicked Deeno under the chin. “Root Beer Float!” she yelled, releasing the fiery aura as an energy blast which gripped at Deeno’s head, pulling relentlessly upwards. Soon enough, the dino’s head came loose, and it fell to the ground with a crash. Svenex sighed. “Finally!”
Sickly showed greater fear with each miss of his sickle, with each strike across his face. Jockey felt unsure herself, scared that her old carnage could be leaking back in. As she watched Sickly’s face contort in terror, she realized that she was instead feeling excitement for her approaching victory. Even in her most controlled form, she had long forgotten that feeling. She grabbed both of Sickly’s sickles and crossed them in front of herself, then kicked them in half. With that same leg, she kicked Sickly in the gut. She held out her hand and charged a Horror Beam at its tip. “You’re put to rest,” she said calmly, firing the beam through his head.
Gaita and Dragon continued to weave around the Blaster. The combined might of the Blaster was impressive, and the two warriors faced many close calls in their battle. The Blaster struck Gaita, who barely blocked. Dragon blasted a freezing wind across his legs, hoping to immobilize him. The Blaster turned his torso all the way around and struck Dragon down. “It’s funny,” Gaita said. “He sacrificed teamwork for power, right as our team formed.”
Dragon chuckled. “Credit where it’s due. Let’s show him what he taught us.” Taking a deep breath, Dragon breathed another gale of fire at the Blaster, engulfing him in flames. The Blaster charged forward, only to hit Gaita’s forcefield moving the other way through the fire. She let the field down and fired a Chelsea point-blank at his face, causing massive damage. Distracted by this injury, the Blaster failed to see the massive thunderbolt Dragon charged below. As he fired, its charge was great enough to draw a bolt of heat lightning from the sky, joining forces on each side of the Blaster to blow his body apart.
The massive peal of thunder drew everyone’s attention. Remmha scowled as he surveyed the battlefield. His elite officers were no more, and in the skies, the Saiyans and Tarsa were plowing through his armies with surprising speed. Torta kept up the pressure, beating into him with no hint of fear, that inescapable smile mocking him at every turn. Remmha’s cold steel heart burned molten hot. “I will not be defeated on a world like this!” he declared. Shifting to liquid, Remmha slinked down to the discarded bodies of the Blaster and absorbed them. They shifted and became one with him, until it looked like he was wearing the Phi Squad like a suit. Once adorned with these parts, Remmha’s power skyrocketed, shocking everyone.
Before Torta could react, Remmha had already returned to him and slammed him deep into the earth. “I’ll kill all your friends first!” Remmha promised. He then rushed to Regal and grabbed her by the throat. “I’m impressed a Namekian defeated Thirtang.” He backhanded her across the jaw, slinging her into the side of the cliff. Flying at blinding speed, he knocked Svenex away with a kick, breaking her arm. “Useless little insect.” Dragon and Gaita attacked from behind, only to be thrown against each other and blasted away with energy bombs. Jockey charged in fiercely, hitting Remmha with great force. After the last strike, Remmha smiled and turned to her. “It’s always been useless for you.” With a massive hammer fist, he pounded Jockey into the ground.
Remmha was hit in the back of the head by an impossibly powerful strike, sending him reeling. A few more came in, from all sides. Once he got his senses back, Remmha found himself surrounded by Onion Rings, much thicker than the previous variety, radiating loose chi around them. Torta was nowhere near him. “Hey, mega combiner!” Torta called out from above the hole he was knocked into. “These are wormholes, if you hadn’t noticed! Now that I can make Extra Crispy Onion Rings, I can actually take advantage of that!” Torta kept up the assault, punching and kicking through his improved rings and striking Remmha from afar. He punched into a hole at his left, and the fist came out through a ring aimed at Remmha’s gut. Each strike felt like it would break Torta just as easily, as expected with the first time use. The increased amount of space compressed into the rings to form these long distance wormholes also increased their acceleration immensely, making them even stronger than before.
Remmha was dumbfounded by the surprise tactic and focused on defense, hardening his body as much as possible so Torta would break his body first. Sensing the greater density, Torta switched tactics. He started firing the blasts of a Tea Set through the rings, carpet bombing Remmha from all sides. With a smile, Torta saw the Phi Squad armor starting to fall off of the admiral, so he turned up the pressure more. Just as he feared he had run out of chi, Remmha’s armor was done away with. Torta threw one more punch through Remmha’s chest before releasing the Onion Rings, letting the Machine Mutant commander fall. Torta heard commotion and looked behind himself to find Legging and Puttee leading a growing crowd of survivors out of the gate. The dawn sun lit across the battlefield as the end appeared nigh.
Torta approached Remmha, charging up a blast to finish things. Remmha struggled to prop himself up, defiant to the end. Jockey joined Torta and gave Remmha a harsh look. “You took billions of lives,” Jockey said, “just to stop me. In your death, I will find my chance to begin my redemption for your crimes.”
Before Torta could speak up, a strange liquid began to emerge from Jockey’s mouth. It was silvery grey and began forming up on the ground, taking a bipedal stance as soon as it landed. The liquid continued to grow and take shape until it was an alien with teal skin, a black bodysuit, and a green jacket. They had the appearance of a teenager, with a softer section of flesh on their head falling to the side like a mohawk. Torta’s jaw was agape. Remmha reacted with reverence. “Clementine!” he called out. “You were supposed to be the best among us! You can still save your people now!”
“You created me as a weapon,” Clementine said, their whole stance nervous but resolute. “You wanted to use me to brainwash the entire universe into permanent slavery. I can still feel the fear, anguish, and dread of all the test subjects you forced me into. I always knew you were going to wreak this carnage across the stars, so I’ll still take solace seeing you end here, with no chance to make more like me.”
Torta was reeling. Jockey had not been kidding about taking a “messiah” from M-2. Clementine turned to Torta and nodded. Shaking his head, Torta formed one last Onion Ring and fired a Club through it, blasting Remmha’s head apart. The people of Earth cheered the end of this threat, even as the Saiyans and Tarsa finished cleaning up the army remnants overhead.
Epilogue:
Tarsa flew down to the ground, finally finished with their job. The rest of the soldiers above would be for the Saiyans to deal with. They approached Puttee, who was talking with Legging, Gaita, and Dragon. “Hey, all!” Tarsa called. “It’s great to see you again!”
“Where were you?!” Puttee demanded to know.
Tarsa was prepared for this question, but still felt more chastised than expected. “I began training with a strange master named Yogin, learning body control. We were in this, I don’t know, pocket dimension, and we had no idea what was going on out here until this morning. That’s when I came rushing out to battle the whole army on my own.”
The group traded glances. “Another master, another pocket space,” Legging said. “At least you came to our aid as soon as you knew.”
“There are other spaces like that?” Tarsa asked.
“Yeah,” said Dragon. “And we were just discussing how the Crown Realm here compressed three months into two days.”
“I’m still not buying that,” said Gaita. “We were definitely gone three months. There’s no way it’s only been two days.”
“I’m telling you,” Dragon insisted, “M-2 landed on Earth two days ago.”
“We waited a whole day before coming out here to see if the battle was over,” said Legging. “You can’t be serious that it was only an hour?”
“It’s true,” said Joma, appearing at their side through a Temple door. “It has only been two days. I can confirm that the rest of the Earth only experienced that much time. It appears a wondrous feature was woven into that Crown Realm of yours.”
“That’s wild,” said Tarsa.
Elsewhere, Torta and Svenex were talking with Jockey and Clementine. Having traveled so long in such an intimate way, neither the Frost Demon or Neo-Machine Mutant wanted to let go, and so held each other in an embrace, nestled against a rock. “Wait, so, what are you, then?” asked Torta. “If you’re not like Remmha and the others.”
“They don’t owe you an explanation,” said Jockey, stroking Clementine’s head. “Just leave us alone.”
“I appreciate your concern, Jockey, but it’s ok,” Clementine said. “I want them to know, to understand. I’m what Remmha wanted to become. I possess a number of their characteristics as a technorganic organism, and I was made with features meant to allow for total dominion over all life. I can enter people’s bodies, as I have been resting in Jockey for this past year, and from there, take total control over a person’s mind and body. I can even leave behind eggs of a sort to keep them in thrall. Imagine the whole universe, taken over and kept in eternal slavery by dictators like Remmha.”
Torta lost words at the thought. “That’s terrifying,” said Svenex.
“I can’t begin to apologize enough for what I’ve done to you all,” said Jockey. “And I know my actions, my attitude, look harsh and misguided. I’ve been living with the possibility of that nightmare this whole time, that things could always be worse. But I don’t say this in the expectation of forgiveness.”
“You are too harsh with yourself, Jockey,” said Clementine. They took Jockey’s hand in both of theirs and stroked it. “Let them consider their own feelings, now that they know our truth.”
Torta sighed deeply and rubbed the back of his head, unsure of how to process the story. Svenex walked away to think on her own. Jockey’s unrelenting sense of responsibility pushed her to consider her own in this moment.
Far away, on another world, Cola was panting for breath. She had been keeping her chi suppressed, chasing after her quarry. She hid behind a bush as she reached the edge of the forest, gazing out over the red grass under the green sky. A man with a long tail and green gems on his body waited at the center of the field. A ship landed from above soon enough, and the collection of chis inside it made Cola shudder. It was a barbaric group of villains, with power beyond anything she thought possible. “We have our last stop!” the man said as he entered the ship. “Let’s go complete the crew!” The ship flew up and away from the world.
Cola walked out into the clearing and sighed. “I guess I have no choice,” she said. “I gotta go rip off that bandage.”
Life in the Gutters 