Chapter 78
The gravity hit like a punch to the lungs. I remember Raditz collapsing first, his taller frame slamming into mud that smelled like rust and rotting fruit. My own legs buckled under the unfamiliar weight, knees sinking into earth so soft compared to Vegeta's iron-hard crust. Only Bardock stood straight-backed, scanning the horizon through broken scouter lenses while Kakarot rolled in the muck, giggling as it stained his pod-burned skin.
Somewhere in the dripping jungle, something screeched—not a battle cry, but the terrified sound of prey. Bardock's head snapped toward it, his nostrils flaring at the scent of something weaker. The first raindrops hit like warm spit against my cheek when he finally spoke: "We rebuild." Not a suggestion. A sentence.
Raditz opened his mouth—probably to whine—but froze when Bardock's tail lashed out to point at the smoking crater where our pod had landed. Among the twisted metal, Mother's severed hand still twitched, fingers curling like a dying spider. I watched understanding dawn in Raditz's eyes moments before Bardock crushed it under his boot with a wet pop. The message was clearer than any speech: Saiyans don't mourn. We conquer.
Kakarot giggled again, smearing mud across his broken ribs. I envied his ignorance, the way toddlers can turn suffering into play. My own legs burned from the unfamiliar gravity, but I bit my tongue until copper flooded my mouth, refusing to be the weak link. Something moved in the canopy above us—too fast for my untrained eyes to track—but Bardock's fist shot out and came back dripping with purple viscera. He tossed the still-twitching creature at my feet. "First meal," he grunted. Its six eyes blinked at me in staggered terror.
The rain thickened, turning the mud to slurry that sucked at my ankles. Raditz was already tearing into the creature with his teeth, but I hesitated, watching its mandibles click uselessly against the air. Mother used to cook our kills with ki-blasts until the skins crackled. My stomach twisted, not from hunger but from understanding: survival here would taste different.
Bardock's shadow fell over me as he ripped the creature from my hands. "Weakness dies first," he said, and I saw my reflection in his scouter's cracked lens—tiny, muddy, and terrifyingly alive. Beyond him, the jungle pulsed with unseen movement. Not prey. Not yet. But something learning the scent of Saiyan blood.
Kakarot's giggles turned to choked coughing as he inhaled rain. Raditz wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing purple ichor across his cheek. "They'll send retrieval teams," he said, but his voice cracked on the last word. Bardock's silence was answer enough. No one was coming for the family of a failed prophet.
The storm peeled back a layer of clouds, revealing twin moons streaked with volcanic ash. I counted twelve heartbeats before the first howl erupted from the valley below—long, undulating, and wrong. Not an animal. Not a machine. Something that had learned to mimic both. Bardock's tail stiffened against my thigh. "Up," he ordered, and for the first time, I heard it: the faintest tremor beneath his growl.
When I turned, I saw why. The mud where Mother's hand had been was boiling. Tiny black tendrils erupted from the ground, knitting together into shapes that almost resembled fingers. Kakarot clapped his hands with delight. Raditz vomited. And Bardock? He smiled. Because Saiyans don't mourn. But we do burn things. His palm glowed red in the downpour.
The creature—no, the planet itself—shuddered as Bardock's ki blast ignited the corrupted soil. The explosion sent us skidding backward, but I caught the scent before the flames hit: ozone and something sweetly rotten, like fruit left to ferment in a warrior's boot. The jungle screamed. Not in pain. In
recognition.
Kakarot was the first to notice the trees moving. Not swaying—stepping. Roots pulled free of the mud with wet sucking sounds, forming crude legs as bark split vertically to reveal amber eyes. Raditz's tail puffed to twice its size. "Fuck," he breathed. Even Bardock adjusted his stance. Because this? This was new.
The nearest tree lunged. I smelled its breath—moss and old blood—before Bardock's fist cratered its face. Splinters rained down like shrapnel. One embedded in my thigh. I yanked it free and licked the sap off: bitter, with a metallic aftertaste. Not sap. Not wood. The planet was learning. And so were we.