"..." Kami stared down at Earth from his lookout, feeling utterly helpless, not for the first time in his life, due to the various troubles that were brewing down on the planet. "Mr. Popo… I believe that the Earth is facing an unprecedented crisis. Was I wrong, all of those years ago?"
"Kami, you musn't think that!" Mr. Popo cried, "You have always done what you thought was best for everybody! Whether you had expelled the evil inside you or not, the Earth would still be in danger today, Kami. And without its guardian!"
"You may be right, but it is also true that, in this particular crisis, all I can do is what I have already done… Escalate it. The Saiyans below have already detected the terrible power from beyond the stars… I cannot ask them to split their focus at a time like this. I can tell… even they may not have the powers to face this threat."
"Then we must hope that young Krillin does, Kami."
"Yes… let us hope, Mr. Popo."
…
"You've already seen the data transmission, right?" Zeck's mouth began moving, the moment that the feed came in over the screen in front of me.
"Yeah, I'm having Novem calculate the projected landing site now." I replied.
"Don't bother. Already did it." Two maps popped up on my terminal near-simultaneously. Zeck had sent me his projection at the same time Novem had.
Fifty kilometer margin of error. Dust bowl, almost directly west from East City.
"Tarble-"
"You wanna handle it-"
"I want to handle it." We said simultaneously. Zeck could definitely be reckless, but he was also pragmatic at the same time. Knowing that my own system was connected to the same satellites as his was, he wouldn't have bothered calling me if he didn't want to at least try..
Still, I shook my head. "Zeck, you saw those power readings. The smaller ones aside, that big one…-"
"It's in the high hundred thousand range, I know." He said, "I can deal with it."
"Zeck…" I honestly had no clue who this was. I couldn't think of any universal threats from my meta-knowledge that had a power level in this range, save for Frieza's first form, which was a specific, notably lower, number.
This particular power level was above 700,000.
Last I'd known, Zeck hadn't even hit the 50,000 range yet. This was way above his weight class… "Zeck, I think you should-" I was going to offer to let him deal with the small fries, if they ended up being hostile, but he cut me off.
"I figured it out, Tarble."
My eyes widened. "You mean-"
"Yeah."
"Zeck, whoever this is, they're not small fries. This is a massive threat. They may be hiding a lot more power than they're showing… They might even try to blow the whole planet. I'm not letting you fight it without backup. It's just way too dangerous." I decided.
I wasn't the type to take a threat lightly, under any circumstances. Screw Saiyan battle-honor or whatever the heck made canon Goku and canon Vegeta refuse to fight together unless fused during Dragon Ball Super. If something was threatening my home, then it wasn't just some 'challenge' to me anymore. It was something that needed to be dealt with. By any means necessary.
But Zeck was unperturbed. "Yeah. I figured that was what you would say, Tarble."
I narrowed my eyes. "...What did you do, Zeck?"
"Bulma's dad sent out probes to every planet in the solar system." Zeck started smugly.
"...You mean, you had more time than me, since my satellites stop at Jupiter?"
"And were infected with a bit of a virus."
The horrible truth dawned on me instantly. "You mean…!"
"Better get going, buddy. I've got a battle to fight." Zeck confirmed it. Knowing that I'd never let him fight alone, he'd delayed my satellites' responses! My data was hours old, and whoever this was, they were going to land any second, nearly an hour away by flight, even for an SSJP!
"You idiot! What if they're hiding more power than-!"
"Sorry, Tar-"
"You can't do this by your-!" The feed cut off abruptly. "DAMMIT!" I grabbed the nearest thing and flung it at the wall, as hard as I could in my normal state. The nearest thing was the corner of my desk. It exploded into dust on contact with the reinforced metal wall of my study, but the force inside was still enough to blast a hole the size of my head through the wall. A few Celatians wandering the streets outside stopped where they were, utterly terrified by the random, albeit small, explosion.
I didn't much care. The only person in danger was Zeck, who was relying way too much on numbers and data. Even if this invader's power level data was right, and Zeck's prototype worked perfectly, fighting without backup was the most stupid, dangerous thing that Zeck could possibly do. It wasn't like him, unless he truly was that confident in what he'd done…
But I could feel it in my gut that whatever was about to happen, it'd be bad, and Tater wouldn't make it until long after the battle had begun.
I didn't know if this invader, whoever they were, were suppressing their full power level, or if Zeck's prototype would malfunction, but I knew that I needed to get there right away.
…
"Protect her." A whisper of a kiss passed over Lynn's forehead as she prepared breakfast. She instantly recognized Tarble's voice, but nobody was around. Just a breeze, blowing lightly through the room, even though the windows were closed.
She was confused for a moment, then decided to work Pepper's specialty and simply move on with a shrug.