"Hhhk-!"
Knox jerked upright with a violent inhale, like a man drowning desperately taking a gulp of air. His whole body shivered, soaked in sweat, and his chest heaved like he'd run a marathon.
The floor beneath him was metal. Every breath tasted like rust and ozone, tinged with something sharper. Burnt plastic, maybe?
Or… blood?
'I need to find out where I am.' He quickly decided. 'And how to get out of here.'
Knox squinted hard, trying to make sense of the place. It clearly wasn't anywhere in the series he was familiar with. And he damn sure wasn't close to being outside like he expected.
Was he in a prison cell?
"Y-you're awake? But you were…"
The voice came from his left.
He turned, stiffly, and saw a scrawny figure hunched nearby. It had grayish-blue skin, slant yellow eyes, and a narrow face marred with scars and grime.
An alien. He wasn't expecting to meet one so quickly.
Turning around fully, he noticed that he wasn't alone.
Around him were dozens of others, packed shoulder to shoulder in the cramped cell like animals in a cage. Like himself, they were all wearing the same gray jumpsuit and black boots, even the smaller ones.
And all of them were looking at him like he'd just sprouted another head.
Whispers rippled through the group, low and fast and fearful. But, weirdly enough, he couldn't make out what they were saying to each other.
"Why are you all looking at me like that?" He asked outright.
Nobody answered right away.
"Y-you were dead," the scrawny alien who'd first spoken hesitantly answered.
Knox blinked.
"...What?"
"Well, o-obviously not anymore, but–!" the alien stumbled over his words… shivering, for some reason. "Yesterday, t-they just threw your body in here all mangled a-and crushed. We couldn't tell if you were alive s-since you didn't seem to be breathing but certain species don't need to breathe and-"
The alien continued to ramble on in his nervousness, but Knox was focused more on the floor directly beneath him.
The metal was stained with patches of dried blood, scraps of torn metal littering where he sat. On closer inspection, he realized there was a dent in the metal, one large enough to… fit his body.
Whoever 'they' were seriously threw him in here like a rotted sack of meat.
"And if all of this is my blood," he murmured. "Then I must've healed due to the portal. Or the system."
Sitting up straighter, he stretched as he looked around the cell. All of the aliens had stopped whispering, simply staring at him with wide eyes. Like people might stare at a thunderstorm through a cracked window:
Transfixed, and afraid.
For a moment, he questioned why they seemed so fearful. He was a five-foot nine guy with bony brown arms. Considering he barely hit the gym once a week, not a single person would ever describe him as 'intimidating'.
Then he remembered.
The curse.
Clearly, it was doing far more than just making his Ki seem evil. Rather, it was probably giving him the whole vibe of a dangerous animal. Something your primal instinct just sees and screams 'danger'.
A few prisoners were visibly sweating. The rest were muttering amongst themselves at a volume Knox couldn't hear.
He wanted to say something, maybe ease their nerves. But…
'Meh,' He decided. 'I don't know these people. There's nothing I can really say that wouldn't set them off.'
It was better to just be direct with his intentions. If he was constantly upfront, then they'd eventually catch on that they had nothing to fear from him.
Knox scratched the back of his neck, eyes scanning the cell again.
"So…" He let the word hang in the air and watched as everyone flinched. "Where exactly are we?"
Once again, the silence stretched as nobody dared to whisper a word.
The scrawny alien from before looked like he wanted to say something, his mouth opened and then closed again. Losing his nerve, his eyes darted to the others, but they weren't offering support.
After a long mildly irritating moment, he spoke.
"We're all-" But his words were interrupted by a loud buzz overhead.
The red lights flickered.
Then the sound of a mechanical clunk came from one of the walls. The heavy footfalls of steel boots echoed louder with each step, until finally what he thought was a wall at the far end of the cell opened with a loud hiss.
The prisoners around him stiffened.
Then a man walked in.
He wasn't massive or monstrous. Just a bit tall. Pale white skin, bald head, with a bunch of black dots covering his top of his massive noggin. A scouter blinked green over one eye, and he tapped away on a device strapped to his forearm.
But it wasn't the alien's face that Knox immediately focused on.
It was the armor.
Black torso. Brown shoulder guards. White trim, polished but worn. A design that had once adorned a thousand background characters was sitting right in front of him.
That armor only meant one thing.
This was the Frieza Force.
The man scanned the group lazily, then barked, "Up. You, you, and… you." He pointed at a trio near the back. "Cargo bay's jammed and the loaders are broken. Congratulations, you get to be the new loaders."
None of them argued. Just stood, heads low, and followed.
Then, just before the man left, he paused. His eyes landed on Knox, the only person standing in the room of cowering prisoners.
He tilted his head slightly. Then he let out a short snort and said, "Huh. Thought we threw this one in here for fun. Didn't think it'd live."
Knox almost just stood there in shock as he walked away, his brain completely stalled to a halt out of shock.
The armor. Their conditions. The scouter. The offhanded, almost casual demand about the others helping with the cargo bay.
All the pieces finally clicked.
He hadn't just woken up in a prison cell like the start of a rather edgy game. They were being used as cannon fodder for whatever the Frieza Force wanted, likely sold as they saw fit. This was a slave pen.
He was property.
The thought of that almost caused him to snarl in disgust. A feeling that was far more potent than he expected it to be. But despite noticing how warped his thinking was in that moment, he couldn't stop himself from opening his mouth.
"Wait."
The soldier stopped, just a step from the door. He turned slowly, one brow arched, the prisoners pausing as well.
Knox's heart was pounding, but more out of revulsion of his circumstances than fear.
"I have a... request."
The soldier simply stared at him before lifting a hand and making a nonchalant 'go on' motion. Rather than humoring him out of kindness, it was clear he was just bored and saw Knox as entertainment.
"Make it quick," the man said, his voice flat. "I'm on a schedule. Unfortunately."
Knox swallowed the saliva gathering in his mouth.
"I want to join," he said.
The soldier lazily blinked, unamused.
"I'm not even sure how I even got here," Knox began. "But I don't want to be… like them." He gestured to the others, careful not to call them slaves outright.
"I want to join the Frieza Force properly. As a soldier."