I felt a slight pressure as my tiny little Attack Ball rocketed out of Planet Vegeta's atmosphere, but that was it. I'd half-expected space travel to be a bit more intense, but honestly, it didn't feel much different from flying upward under my own power.
I could sense the rest of my 'team' fly off behind me if I concentrated, but the incessant beeping of the Attack Ball's various systems made it difficult, especially since I hadn't actually met my team, beyond the cursory nods of acknowledgement as the various Frieza Force alien minion people explained everything that us kids needed to know about the Attack Ball, since the only one who'd ever left the planet before was our navigator, a tall, put-together woman who'd simply stood there, glaring at me with an unreadable, slightly cold expression.
As an aside, she was the only one on our team who wore a scouter. Apparently, we didn't need them, for some reason. That made me glad for the disconnected one in my pocket, remembering my brother's advice about me getting dropped off somewhere incredibly dangerous.
Even though none of us had ever been inside an attack ball before, we'd all learned about them, so the crash course on them had simply consisted of 'don't break this. Don't touch this. Don't destroy this. Make sure not to press this button, it'll make your ship explode.'
It didn't take us long to get through it… except for the fact that we had to wait for them to being in a replacement ship for Pepper, who pulled the power cell out of her original ship out of curiosity, causing the whole thing to explode in her face in a pretty epic meltdown.
And after that, we were stuffed into the tiny ships and sent off into space. I felt myself blast off first, followed by Mel, then Tommy, Tater, Lynn, and Pepper.
I (much to my chagrin) hadn't managed to peel any information about our destination world out of anyone, but I was told that the flight was around three weeks one way. As such, the attack ball would, when it sensed me trying to sleep, extend my time unconscious until we got within a few minutes of the destination.
Honestly, I didn't like the idea of wasting three weeks asleep, but there wasn't much that I could do about it, so I decided to lull myself to sleep with a little exercise, trying to sense the rest of my team as they flew through the galaxy beside me.
My senses lost Pepper first. She was the furthest from me, and the weakest energy signal. Then, one at a time, I found Lynn, Tater, and Tommy slowly disappear from my perception, until the bright, powerful energy signal that was Mel was the only one left in my inner sight. With how strong and close she was, sensing her was easy. Eventually, I couldn't help but shift in my pod, pulling my Scouter out of my pocket, turning it on, and putting it on my face to scan her power level, then my own.
Yup, neither had changed from what I knew.
Her power level was 2476. Mine, when I didn't hold anything back, was 1845. It bothered me that she was stronger than me, but not as much as it bothered me that she was the only one allowed a Scouter. Something just felt off to me.
And, when we finally landed, I'd learn exactly how right my gut was.
…
On an unknown planet, six space pods barrelled through the atmosphere, before hitting the ground in a tight formation. The pod that hit the ground first smashed straight through a towering tree, nearly a hundred meters tall, before creating a crater on the forest floor. The other pods weren't so unlucky, as only one single tree fell, once the pods were settled on the ground, leading to seven loud crashes, echoing for miles in every direction.
Once the noises faded, the pod that had smashed through the tree was the first to open, the door slowly hissing. The Saiyan inside climbed out, bringing a hand to the scouter on his face as he stretched his body, stiff from weeks of sleeping in an uncomfortable position.
…
"Well, that's not good. Actually, it really, really sucks. There's no chance that my father isn't actively trying to kill us all by sending us here." I muttered to myself, turning my scouter on.
Not that I actually needed the scouter to realize the truth. It just put the grim situation into numbers.
"Where did you get a scouter, child?!" And that was Mel, yelling at me with a horrified look on her face as she noticed that I had a scouter on my face. She clearly realized that the jig was up.
"Several hundred million signatures." That was actually pretty average for a populated planet. Maybe even on the low side, but… "Seventy percent of them have a power level of over 1,000. Ten percent have power levels of over 5,000. Several hundred with power levels of over 7,500." I read off. As I read it off, one of the power levels spiked. "And that guy's power level just jumped up to 24,000." It didn't stay up there long, but my point got across to my team, who, apart from Mel (who was looking at me in a state of barely-concealed rage), were looking at me in shock and disbelief.
A power level of 24,000 wasn't something that one joked about. A power level of 10,000, like my father's, could theoretically destroy a planet, after all. Even Saiyans believed that getting that strong without relying on their ape forms was nearly impossible, though that belief was actually pretty wrong.
Plus, of the six of us, the only one who technically had a power level over 1,000 was Mel.
"That cheap scouter must be on the fritz, kid. Give it to me." Mel demanded, radiating an aura that made the other four subconsciously back off.
Unaffected by her attempt at intimidation, I pulled the scouter off of my face, before popping the side panel off of it with a precise use of energy, using another energy 'tool' to disconnect the power supply before popping the side panel back on and holding the scouter up in my hand.
"It's not broken. We were sent here to die, weren't we?" I asked, slipping the device into my pocket. I didn't need it anymore.