Dragon Ball Z: The Beast Within - CH30

I flew past the mountains and back to our camp. The current of the wind howled in my ears as we flew fast enough to punch through clouds.

The sooner we left this planet, the better.

"Can you tell me why we’re running away?" she called from just off my right flank, she was annoyed, insulted at the fact we were running away, leaving without a fight. "Because last I checked, we’re Saiyans. Running isn’t really our thing."

If my idiotic instincts are to be believed, suicide is our thing. Otherwise, it makes no sense that I want to fight, despite knowing my chances are below zero.

I kept my eyes ahead. "Would you die for these people?" I asked.

Before she could sputter out the usual warrior bluster, I added, “I wouldn’t.”

She fell quiet. Not because she agreed, necessarily. She was doing the math. She was always slow when it came to this, but she got there eventually.

"Since when are you scared of dying?" she finally said, and her voice was lower this time, not angry—confused. "You fought that Evil Namekian bastard when you knew he could kill you, and he almost did, and you didn’t even flinch."

I chuckled. Damn she had a point there, a good one at that, I’ll give her that.

"Yeah," I muttered. "I almost died, and it was a fun fight. But to answer your questions, no… I’m not afraid to die, I’m afraid of being robbed of my free will."

She looked at me sideways but didn’t ask for clarification. If anything she seemed confused.

Death, I could stomach. 

I’d already done that once. Back in my old life. One second I was taking a hike with my dog, the next… I was falling to my death. And then this. This second chance. This cursed blessing of a body with too much power and little to no survival instincts.

I wasn’t afraid to die. 

The otherworld here… seemed like a vacation resort, if anything.

I wasn’t even afraid of Dabura. There was no point in being afraid of him, I knew he could sneeze me into the otherworld.

But Babidi? I was actually afraid of him, or rather… what he could do. Death was clean. Simple. But that little gremlin turned you into a thing. A puppet, a sycophant, someone who took pride in licking its master’s boots, and doing whatever he pleased.

Mind control, based on the evil of one’s heart.

Only the pure of heart were immune to this. Goku. Gohan. The exceptions. The kind of people you could count on one hand in any universe, to be entirely honest. And I knew I wasn’t one of them.

Not even close.

I’d seen what humanity was back in my world. Not the soft-skinned, idealized version we like to plaster over textbooks and self-help conferences. Humans were a species led by greed, viciousness and cruelty masked as pragmatism. You scratch deep enough into anyone and you’ll find something dark staring back.

Everyone had a little bit of evil deep within them, some more than others, and I wasn’t the exception to the rule.

You don’t need to be evil… to know you are capable of it.

“You ever wonder what happens if someone controls you?” I asked, still not looking at her. “I mean, not ‘beats you in a fight’ I mean takes your body, your thoughts, your pride. Makes you watch as they wear your face like a mask and turn you into a mindless slave?”

Okara didn’t answer.

Not that I expect her to.

We flew in silence for another few miles, the terrain below a cracked expanse of blackness. The locals were right, this planet was dying. Had been for a while.

“Where are we even going?” Okara finally asked, and her tone was different now.

“Off-world. Anywhere but here,” I slowed just a bit. "The universe is big, so there are options."

She let the silence hang for a second or two.

“You think that king thing back could… control us?” she asked.

“No, but the one who controls him; might find he needs a replacement for him if we kill him,” I replied.

Okara said nothing.

But her ki spiked for just a second; a reaction, not to an attack, but one that showed a twitch of frustration she didn’t even realize she let slip.

I felt it. She was angry. Not at me, not really, I think. She was angry she agreed with me. At walking away. At not having something to punch.

“You think too much,” she finally muttered.

“And you don’t think enough,” I replied.

She clicked her tongue. “Thinking didn’t save those aliens.”

“Since when are you interested in saving people?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

That did it.

Okara’s ki flared—not like she was about to attack, but just enough to make the air ripple between us.

“I’m not,” she snapped, refusing to look at me. “But I’m also not a coward.”

There it was. The reflexive response. A Saiyan’s pride dressed up as moral clarity.

I didn’t bite.

I just gave her a look. “Careful. You're starting to sound compassionate. That’s dangerously close to treason in Saiyan culture.”

Her cheeks flushed instantly. Rage? Embarrassment? Probably both. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Her tail flicked once behind her like a very pissed-off cat.

“Shut up,” she muttered.

“Oh no,” I said, mock-serious. “Is that a hint of empathy I detect? You better bury that fast, Okara. Wouldn’t want to lose your Saiyan license.”

She growled, actual growled, and her fists clenched at her sides. “Say that again and I’ll rip your damn—”

She didn’t finish.

Because something hit me. In the back. Creating an explosion around me.

There was no noise. No warning. Just a dull thump across my shoulder blades and a puff of dust and smoke. My body shifted slightly mid-air from the impact, but it didn’t even sting.

Okara’s head snapped around, her tail bristled to full puff like she was about to bite someone’s throat out.

“What the hell was that?” she barked, scanning the horizon. “Who did that?!”

I hovered in place, let the smoke drift off me like it was nothing—because it was nothing.

“Relax,” I said. “It tickled.”

She kept spinning in the air, squinting in every direction, hand already twitching to form a ki ball. “Didn’t feel like a weakling’s attack…”

“I didn’t say it was weak,” I replied. “I said it didn’t do anything.”

There’s a difference.

I rubbed the spot on my back, not out of pain, just habit. The fabric of my armor was barely scorched. If I hadn’t physically felt the pressure against my skin, and seen the smoke, I wouldn’t have known I’d been hit at all.

But that wasn’t the weird part.

The weird part was... I didn’t sense it.

Not the energy, not the build-up, not even the movement, or a change of wind. I hadn’t felt any spike in ki from anywhere nearby. That should’ve been impossible. Unless—

No.

I scanned again. Nothing. Just Okara next to me, tense and ready to kill, and Garlik’s familiar energy signature way off east. I could also feel the energy signatures of the aliens that had greeted us, a few miles north.

Beyond that, no one else.

No flicker of power, no trace of a trail, no hint of direction.

“I wonder if—” I didn’t get to finish my sentence, as another blast hit me.

This one from the side, near my ribs. A puff of air, followed by an explosion and a shock through my armor. Same thing as before, no buildup, no warning. Just impact and smoke.

No damage like before.

Okara cursed and shot to the side, scanning the ground like she was about to dive. “Who the hell is doing that?!”

I stayed right where I was.

“This isn’t normal,” I muttered, mostly to myself.

She stopped mid-dive. “Yeah, no kidding!”

“No, I mean really not normal.” I turned slowly in place, eyes sharp. “It’s ki. That much I’m sure of. But there’s no presence behind it. It’s like the energy’s being... deadened.”

“Deadened?” she echoed, confused. Her anger being swallowed by her befuddlement.

“Suppressed. Cloaked. Hidden. Whatever word you want,” I said. “The point is, I can’t feel it until it hits me.”

She processed that, and I could almost hear her brain grinding through it.

“Wait… shouldn’t that be impossible?” she said.

Normally yes, but then you had people like the Androids, who had no presence due to the nature of the bodies and could still use ki, and well you got a dangerous combination.

But that was neither here nor there. I seriously doubted I was dealing with some sort of Android or Robot here.

“It should.”

She opened her mouth, paused, and then shut it again. Smart. If I couldn’t sense it and she couldn’t either, yelling into the void wasn’t going to help.

Two hits. Two directions. No energy source.

I scanned again, extending my senses farther than before. Still nothing. The land below was completely dark and still. The air above was empty.

This environment was more than ideal for whoever wanted to attack others without revealing their position. That said… by now, whoever was behind this should be aware that attacks of this level wouldn’t do anything other than annoy us.

Unless… they already knew this, and these attacks were nothing but their way of sending a message.

But what could that message be?

We can’t kill you, but we can ann– keep you here.

This complicates things…

I looked at Okara. “If those blasts hit the ship instead of us, we’d be trapped in this planet.”

Her expression shifted instantly. From confused to pissed to incredibly pissed. Good. She was catching up.

“They think they can keep us here?!” she asked, or rather growled out.

“Yeah,” I paused. “Their attacks might do nothing to us, but they’d tear through the ship’s hull like tissue.”

Her face tightened.

“Do we go after them?” she asked.

I exhaled, low and slow. “We don’t even know where to go.”

Another beat of silence passed between us. I was thinking through options.

If the shooter was testing us, they were doing a damn good job. They’d aimed for me, specifically. Not Okara. Or worse, at the ships under Garlik’s care.

Could’ve been a warning. Could’ve been a distraction. Hell, could’ve been someone’s idea of a joke.

Didn’t matter. We couldn’t take off with them still out there. Too risky.

“We can’t lead them back to Garlik,” I said, crossing my arms. If we took this game of hide and seek to our camp, they could switch targets, and that wasn’t an option.

“To hell with this!” With a sharp yell and a wild pivot, she swung her arm in a broad arc, unleashing a wave of searing ki that tore forward like a crashing tide. The energy raced across the black landscape, disintegrating everything in its path. Rock, sand, half-buried ruins — all of it erased in a blinding flash that stretched for miles.

The explosion lit up the entire sky, drowning out the planet with the first side of light in probably decades, a sickly yellow hue. The air pressure slapped against my face like a hot slap of wind, even though I was a good distance above her.

She crossed her arms with a satisfied smirk, her tail flicking behind her like a metronome of righteous rage.

She was proud.

“There,” she said, smug as hell. “Problem solved. They were down there — now they’re dead, no need to thank me.”

I stared at the crater she’d carved into the planet.

Then, of course, it happened.

Another blast. This time dead center, right into my chest.

And just like before, no giveaway, just the feeling of impact and a burst of smoke around my torso. However, there was a change in this attack, this was one… was stronger than the others. Not by much, but enough to be noticeable. 

I drifted back a few inches in the air.

The smoke cleared, and I stared down at her, deadpan.

“You said?”

Okara’s face twisted. Her brow twitched like a muscle trying to fire off a comeback it didn’t quite have loaded.

“Oh, come on!” she shouted, throwing her hands up. “That was everything! What, are they explosionproof now?!”

She spun around, scanning for any trace of movement, any flicker of return fire. Nothing. Just the smoldering wasteland she’d created and the darkness eating away at the planet.

I rubbed my chest, pressing my lips together. Didn’t hurt, perse… just a mild sting, like someone slapping me through a thin shirt. Annoying more than painful.

Still... the difference in power between the first two attacks and this was one, was big.

The first two hits were like getting tapped on the shoulder. This third one, around five times stronger than that. Not enough to matter or be dangerous. But enough to raise some concerns.

I drifted slightly to the side, mind going over what I knew.

What had changed?

It wasn’t distance. I hadn’t moved far.

Was it timing? Doubtful. The blasts didn’t seem coordinated enough for that.

The only real variable I could see from my side was Okara.

Her first outburst had cleared out everything in front of us; with no effect. Now, after her tantrum, the power had ticked up.

Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe the one behind this is playing with us, or hiding their true power.

But maybe not.

I looked at her again. She was still fuming, still pacing midair, muttering half-curses under her breath. Her ki flared inconsistently; bursts of frustration bleeding out of her with every breath.

She was reacting. Not thinking. Which meant she was playing right into whoever's hand this was.

I opened my mouth to warn her.

Too late.

“That’s it!” she yelled. “This time I’m destroying everything around me!”

And before I could so much as raise an eyebrow, or tell her that her plan had more than a few flaws, she spun in place like a psychotic beyblade, channeling a full-body charge of energy into a wide arc. The result was an explosive radial blast that erupted outward from her like a bomb. It consumed the surrounding landscape in an instant.

Unfortunately, that included me.

The wave of energy hit me full force. I didn’t even try to block it. Just held position and let it pass through as I sighed, rubbing my temples.

It didn’t do any damage; not really. But it was like being inside a wind tunnel filled with sandpaper and tiny rocks.

I squinted through the glare of her blast, watching the terrain dissolve in every direction. Rocks vaporized. Distant hills shattered. A few lingering pockets of scorched wildlife vanished in the blink of an eye.

“Huh, so this planet still has wildlife… life finds a way,” I muttered.

When the dust cleared, we were hovering over a cratered wasteland that looked freshly born from a war.

And, as if waiting for the comedic timing, another blast. This time on my shoulder. The attack pushed me to the side, destroying my shoulder blade.

I floated back toward her, brushing dust off my shoulder like dandruff. “Have we established that your approach doesn't work, or do you need to blow the place a few times before reaching that conclusion?”

She huffed, chest heaving from the effort, but didn’t respond.

“I take it you’re still upset.”

She growled something unintelligible. Probably not a compliment.

I looked around. 

The power had gone up again. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next hit actually left a bruise.

This enemy was either playing with us, like a cat with its food… or Okara was helping them somehow.

Either way, the main problem behind this situation was that our enemy had the ability to launch ki-based attacks with zero detectable presence. And they could do it from a reasonable range.

And if the power behind their attacks continued to grow at this rate, it wouldn’t be long before I had to worry for more than our ships.

I clenched a fist, letting a bit of my energy crackle to the surface. I couldn’t blame Okara for being annoyed at this, it was taking an enormous amount of self-control not to blow the entire planet off.

If it wasn’t for the fact there was intelligent life here, and we could breath in the vacuum of space, I would’ve done so already.

“Okara,” I said flatly. “Keep your energy steady. No more theatrics.”

She spun toward me, crossing her arms. “You got a better plan?”

“The fact you considered your—” Blast. “Little tantru—” Blast. “A… plan–” Blast.

OK THAT IS IT!

Okara opened her mouth.

I held up a trembling finger.

“Don’t.”

“But—”

“Do not speak to me right now.”

Another blast. My left calf.

That’s it. This was no longer strategy. This wasn’t even harassment. They were trying to piss me off, and it was working!

“Are you seeing this?” I barked, spinning in place, arms raised. “Why me? Am I supposed to learn something?! Is there a lesson here I’m too mortal to comprehend?!”

Okara snorted, clearly trying not to laugh.

That only pissed me off more.

“No, by all means, enjoy the comedy hour!” I snapped. “Let’s just let whoever’s throwing these ki blasts at me keep going until I snap your vertebrae out of pure irritation!”

She was fully laughing now. Out loud. Hands on her knees, bent over in midair like she’d just been punched in the gut by a joke.

I didn’t even blame her. I probably looked like the angry Saiyan version of a carnival target. All I was missing was a spinning hat and a sign that said “hit me.”

“I swear to every God in the known multiverse,” I grumbled, eyes twitching as I glared into the void of sky, “if I find the clown responsible for this, I’m not just gonna beat them. No. No, no, that would be merciful.”

I clenched my fists.

“I’m going to rip a part of them and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. Before lecturing about respect, about decency, about properly announcing your goddamn presence in a fight like a civilized psychopath!!!”

Another blast; this time, the tip of my tail.

“Forget the lecture, I’m going straight to ripping limbs! You do not touch the tail!”

Okara was howling now. Actually doubling over, gasping for air mid-flight.

I turned to her slowly. “You’re enjoying this.”

She gave me a thumbs-up between wheezes. “This is the best day of my life.”

“You will pay for this during our next training session,” I muttered. “Glad I could be of entertainment. Be sure to remind me of exploding the next planet we land on. Just on principle.”

Another hit, this time directly to the butt.

“OKAY. WHOEVER YOU ARE—YOU HAVE CROSSED ALL THE LINES!”

I threw my arms out wide.

“COME OUT, YOU COWARDLY COW-ASS FANTASY ASSASSIN—SHOW ME YOUR FACE SO I CAN SHOVE IT BACKWARDS INTO YOUR CHEST AND MAIL IT TO WHOEVER HATCHED YOU!”

Nothing.

Just the wind.

The quiet whistle of a planet that had, just minutes ago, been mostly intact.

Okara wiped a tear from her eye. “Done?” she asked.

I exhaled like I’d just been holding it in for days. “Not even close.”

I floated higher, raising my voice to the whole sky now.

“You keep hitting me, and I swear to whatever eldritch, glowstick-wielding gremlin is up there — I will come find you, and when I do, you will regret being born! It won’t be pretty. I will walk into your hidey-hole, grab your neck, and shake you like a f***ing glowstick at a rave!”

Silence.

Absolute silence.

I hovered there, chest heaving, fists clenched, fully ready to yell at the atmosphere again.

Okara tapped my arm. “What’s a rave?”

“Not now.”

“You never explain your weird words…”