—

"Ow!" Ree cried, holding the back of her neck after collision with the planet's service. The pod was designed for this, sure, but for all her strength, it takes time for one to get used to crash-landing in to alien worlds from orbit.

Peering out through the plexiglass window on the front of the pod, the teenage Saiyajin girl gathered her surroundings. The impact had blasted a huge crater in the surface, but that was to be expected, pods did that when they landed; kind of their trademark when she thought of it. Tropical rainforest was what she saw behind the smoking grater, watching the flames on the outer edge of the forest become extinguished through lack of opportunity to burn, the forest being made of wet planet life and all. "Computer, confirm location compared to expected landing point," said Ree.

"Landing point confirmed. North-Eastern Hemisphere, latitude ninety two, longitude seventy three, grid four, sector nine, sub-sector eight. Entry targeting was exact. Atmospheric constitution deemed safe for supporting occupant based on medical information supplied. Initiating exit procedure," said the computer as it opened the door.

First thing that hit Ree was the humidity. Taro had said this place was hot and muggy, but this was way more than Ree had expected. An overwhelming smell too. Not a bad smell, but a definite one that comes from standing around several metres made entirely of decayed bio-matter turned soil mixed with water until it was turned in to a pseudo-solid muck. Then the winds, that hot steamy jungle air that smelled like it had hung over a thousand miles of untapped wilderness.

Ree's crater, mind, was another story. It was a hole created by the impact where the area within dozens of yards had been heat-blasted into hard mud and the loose dirt knocked off until the pod hit harder, firmer stone. Scary thing for Ree, that impact was softer than it could have, even should have, been.

Ree's senses were already tingling all over from all the life. The whole planet seemed to pulse with ki energy that was a bit overwhelming coming from her home-world, which had many lush regions but was comparatively barren, Vegeta-sei.

"Okay, so that won't work. What does this thing make for sense out of this?" Ree asked herself, clicking the scouter's activation button and blinking at the read-outs given. "Wow, she sure updated these thing's capabilities," she said while looking through the purple tinted screen. It displayed temperature, atmosphere composition, time of day relative to the planet's solar/lunar cycle, and mapped out the seven conflicting concentration of ki signatures while outlined the most heavily populated region.

Ree blinked a moment, taking in the numbers that the scouter was generating. Each power level must have been in the low-to-mid thousands, with the lower region bottoming out just short of one thousand and it topping out the average of well over ten-thousand. "Ten thousand?" she asked herself, "Even we Saiyajin only average out an upper limit of four thousand. The Elites are on this level, higher even, but... There are so many readings. That's immense. Maybe this be an invasion colony of an alien race that Furiza once conquered."

‘Beep, enemy detected: average PL 100,000, highest registered 150,000. Incoming via SW. ETA 55:32' the scouter displayed, counting down the time.

Ree scratched her head, "An hour huh? Okay. I can handle that. Lets um." The scouter beeped an alert again and a glance from Ree showed the ETA having dropped from 55:00 to 00:55 - Less than a minute away. "Oh no," said Ree, quickly turning and running for the nearby jungles, her own scouter suddenly failing to register her ki reading, so once she confirmed she was ‘invisible' to it, she turned it off and watched the landing site from her hiding spot.

Eight figures appeared over the pod high in the sky, hovering there. Ree struggled to look at them, but all she could see was that they were white, blending in well with the white clouds in their sky-blue world, plus a deep shade of violet that struck her as a vivid contrast between boldness and approachable ease. They had hair, too. She thought it was black.

Four of them landed by the space pod, checking it out briefly before nodding off to the other four hovering above, their eyes searching the nearby landscape for any signs of the intruder.

Ree crept forward, peering over a batch of bushes, eyeing the nearest of them.

They had long black hair, their clothes were white, baggy and not the tight warrior's jump suit she was used to seeing such ‘hardcore warriors' wearing. Their skin was purple and deeply ridged, a trio positions on their arms had large dark pink lumps in orderly fashion. They had hair, at least it looked like hair, but it moved in the steaming wind of the jungle more like stands of loose vine than hair as she knew it, but it was black. They also had long, thin ears, angular features and a fit but feminine shape to them. They were beautiful, really, in their own sharp way. They even had fangs.

"What odd creatures these Kemajin are," whispered Ree to herself, pushing a leaf out of the way.

All of them began looking around quietly. Ree could pick them up, they were trying to be subtle about it, but they knew there was something close by that wasn't native to the area and Ree knew that they were now aware of her presence. Curiously, though, Ree wasn't sure why they seemed so perplexed until she remembered: Saiyajin don't hide their power levels. These aliens would have known where they were without investigation.

"There's one nearby," said the third on the ground, with her hair short and cropped behind her ears, not past her shoulders, "I heard something. I know it. Vera?"

The second closest stepped forward, inadvertently closer to Ree. "Yeah. I hear it. Someone is close. Really close. They're probably hoping to ambush us, or didn't expect us to notice a falling space ship," Vera said sarcastically.

Ree huddled in the bushed, shivering now. They were talking about her, she knew it, but couldn't hear them. They could probably hear her. It wasn't fair! They out numbered her, and they were strong. Probably as strong as she was, Ree was afraid, and they knew about her, and, and, and.

"There," said one of the ones in the sky, tapping a long-haired one on the shoulder, pointing down towards Ree's general direction.

In the span of a second Ree had gone to conqueror alien champion to scared girl running for dear life, all started by a powerful blast of purple ki energy firing out from that flying woman's fingers. Ree threw out her hands and jumped, shielding herself with a field of translucent white ki. Landing in the mud, Ree booked it out of there while her instincts began to take over.

"Lena! No!" called out one of the women, one with flowing almost-black violent hair that jumped at Ree's attacker in an attempt to stop whatever Lena was about to do. To which Lena would have no part of, even throwing this would-be savior back to continue a barrage of purple ki blasts from her finger.

Ree hopped over a tree, then shunted herself to the side so fast that the world blurred out momentarily, then Ree jumped up to the trees to use them as cover and a sort of decoy to set off the individual ki blasts that were ravaging this rank rain forest.

Finally Ree landed, spinning around to catch a stern glance at her attacker. The woman turned out to look as if ‘woman' was a fairly inappropriate term, as the girl had the look to be little more than a teenager had she been a Saiyajin, with a somewhat round set of features that made her look a bit like a half-blossomed bud.

This Kemajin, Lena, stopped to hover over top of Ree's position, sensing Ree's ki radiating from a clearly marked spot which her antennae helped her ki senses pick up easily. Placing both hands over top of her head in a pair of clenched fists, forging a pair of bright violet balls of energy around those fists, Lena roared with victorious invigoration, hurling the charged beam down at Ree with a posture of invulnerability.

The footprints left in the mud beneath quickly blew free of water while Ree adopted a low defensive posture, her right hand up by her left cheek while her lilac cloak fell over her right arm to shroud her in a protective shield. Watching the blast approach, Ree's timing was exquisite with her defensive ki block, thrusting her open right hand into the blast and grinding her feet in to the mud with her ki aura surging around her.

Ree's tail came free from around her waist, swaying in the adrenaline rush that followed, and Ree's ki overtook her attacker's several-fold, resulting in a mammoth magenta counter-blast that consumed all sight of Lena. It disappeared in to orbit after that, leaving nothing but a breeze and a few ashes to sprinkle the forest canopy below.

Stunned at what she had done, Ree's eyes remained focused on those ashes, an feeling of shame overcoming her spacial awareness. All she could do is stand there and try to absorb the fact that she'd killed another being with a blast far more powerful than that alien, Lena, could have defended against.

A moment later the remaining seven Kemajin landed around Ree in a circle with their glowing fingers pointed at her, all rigid in grief and rage. "Alien, lower your ki and prepare to be taken prisoner," said the one who had tried to stop Lena to begin with.

Bowing her head in an apologetic sign, Ree's ki dissipated and she went willingly.

—

"Sire! Please! Cease immediately! We're under direct orders from your father to return you in one piece! We don't want to hurt you!" cried the knee-length blue-streaked haired Saiyajin Elite in front of the opening door of the space station.

"If you want me to return you in one piece, you'll get out of my way immediately!" screamed Prince Vegeta, staring through the plexiglass helmet of the shell he wore that encased his entire body in protective armour, somewhat unfinished looking wiring criss-crossing his major chakra points. A black suit of expanded environmental space armour in the design of the Saiyajin Elite armour, but the enhancements all designed to artificially focus his animas to the device stored on its' back.

"Remember sir, my colleague devised this unit, but it ultimately proved fatal to every one who tried to use it, including a Saiyajin Elite of over twenty thousand on the Power Level scale. The body can only produce so much ki at once before you risk shutting down crucial organ functions. By your order Crown Prince, I'll give you it, but I warn you that it is not yet proven safe."

"Thank you Doctor. You have assured the next generation of your usefulness. Keep an eye on those children for me, they are the future of Vegetai-sei."

"Men, prepare for hostile engagement. Remember, lethal force all the way. He may be the Prince, but he's also the strongest member of the Elites, so nothing but our best is going to take him down. Understand?" said the Elite, to which they all replied ‘Yes Sir!'

Prince Vegeta looked around. The hanger-bay had quickly emptied as soon as the Elites had closed the blast doors in the hopes that it would discourage the Prince from leaving. Now it was only a mostly empty room intended to store middle-sized star-saucers and visiting alien town-ships. The doors could withstand direct bombardment from planetary defense cannons.

Though that doesn't mean they can stop Vegeta.

Moving low in to a sprinter's position, eyeing the ki flows of the dozens of Saiyajin Elite that stood in front of him, waiting for the first one to make the mistake of firing at the Prince.

None of them were that stupid.

Vegeta's sprint was a blur, leaving a lingering view of himself in the position he was in. Vegeta effortlessly slid between the Elite soldiers placed in his path with sublime footing that let him twist around a grab, duck under tackles and jumping over a few kicks at his legs to stop him. The only obstacle that could prove to be any kind of a challenge was the blast door.

Vegeta flew up and rammed in to the door with a shoulder block that rang out a dull ‘tong' sound through the hanger. There was a dent alright, but still Vegeta wasn't any closer to getting out and the Elites were already gathering themselves for another attempted monkey-pile on the Prince.

Making back, Vegeta held out his hand with his fingers spread open while a shining amber flame of ki covered his palm. Smirking with pride, Prince Vegeta unleashed the blast, and thunderous explosion that rattled the entire moon-sized station was enough to make its' residents think they'd bore witness to the second Big Bang.

The shattered, rend and torn remnants of the massive alloy doors were quickly sucked into the vacuum of space, while the Elites all flew towards the emergency counter-decompression chambers stored along the walls to save their own lives.

Prince Vegeta floated in the air, and then felt his ki needless when the void took over his vicinity, save for any movement Vegeta wished to make. So Vegeta was off in to the darkness of space, protected by a prototype armour intended to safeguard him from the rigors of space that even a Saiyajin was hard-pressed to survive in for long.

Flying out past the station, Prince Vegeta's helmet began to beep to life, displaying countless attack fighters moving towards him. No doubt sent by his father to stop him, but no matter.

Closing his eyes, Vegeta began to concentrate while the screen on the helmet began to display a grid of the galaxy, then their quadrant, their sector, a sub-sector, and it came up, a single planetoid. Focusing on that planet, Vegeta readied himself.

The ki flowed like water vapors out from him as a shining white mist while the circuits in the armour began to channel. There was a sharp pain in a few places for the Prince, deep pain, pain as if one's body was not behaving as it should have, but the charge-lines that the Prince had been told about running away from those chakra points were behaving as they should, glowing a bright golden colour, pooling towards the machine on the back.

Vegeta's eyes went wide, the universe suddenly making sense in a way that he'd never seen before, and he prepared to touch infinity with his own hand.

Then the shot fired from the long-range laser cannon skimmed his arm.

Vegeta disappeared from orbit and all sensor range.