- (Knox) -
One month had passed.
In that time, not much happened. They simply drifted from star system to star system, slowly travelling to their destination.
With Granolah as the pilot, there wasn't much time left before they arrived at Earth.
In the meantime, there was really only one thing left for Knox to do.
"Hnngh!"
A guttural groan tore from his throat. Every muscle fiber in his chest, shoulders, and arms, screamed in protest.
The bar, loaded with plates totaling to roughly 650 kilograms, trembled a bare inch above his chest. His arms shook violently, veins bulging from within. Sweat poured from his brow, stinging his eyes and pooling on the bench beneath him.
This was the limit. The limit of what his flesh could bear without the cheat code of Ki flowing through him.
One might ask Knox, 'How the hell are you lifting over half a ton of weight without any Ki?'
And, of course, Knox would answer–
"I'm a… fucking… genius."
To fit as much training into a single day as possible, he simply wouldn't stop. He would train his body to failure, then activate his [Dou, and continue his training with even greater weights.
Then, when his body is completely broken and destroyed, he'd choke down nutrient paste to fuel the repair, and seal the deal with a quick session in the medical chamber.
The [Dou] trait not only let him train faster, but when activated it kept him unnaturally focused throughout the day.
And now, with a final explosive exhalation…
"Haah!"
He forced the weight up, careful not to lock his elbows.
For just a single triumphant second, he held that position, his entire world narrowed to the feel of cold metal and the burn of hard work.
CLANG!
Then he let the weight go on the rack, his chest heaving.
Skill [Lifting] Rank increased!
+1 BODY multiplier for increasing from E to D.
"Aah, the sweet smell of progress in the morning. There ain't nothin' like it in the universe."
He lay on the bench for another moment, basking in that feeling and letting his body's fatigue wash over him. Ever since he'd gained [Dou, the mind-numbing emptiness of space had actually gotten better.
Not because he was less bored, but because when he was in that colorless world of focus, he didn't have to actually think about anything except–
"Knox."
Marzette's weary tone abruptly chimed in through the intercom. Almost instinctively, he rolled his eyes, a familiar frustration building in his gut.
Not at her.
But at the exact weary tone he knew she was calling him for. The same tone she'd used a dozen times over the past month.
Instead of groaning, he simply let his head thunk against the bench with a dull clang.
"They're back, aren't they?"
"..."
Marzette didn't reply, as she knew he knew the answer to that. She simply let the intercom static go on for a few seconds before it clicked off.
Like clockwork, the idiots had sent another fleet.
With a sigh, Knox pushed himself off the bench and grabbed a towel. After leisurely cleaning himself and the bench off, he padded out of the training room. As he walked, he raised an arm and sniffed at his armpit, scrunching his nose at the smell.
'Gonna have to take a shower after this.'
Walking into the command room, his lips thinned as his thoughts were proven correct. Right on the holographic screen was another Frieza Force fleet mindlessly following them. Marzette stood off to the side, arms crossed.
On the other side of the glass, Knox saw that they were speeding through a cluster of asteroids.
Granolah didn't turn as he spoke, mildly focused.
"What do you want to do?"
Knox had learned over the past month that Granolah was somehow even more stoic than Marzette. Where she would offer analysis or dry commentary, Granolah didn't say a word. If he didn't feel the need to speak, he wouldn't let out so much as a peep.
'I'll never understand Sasuke expy's…'
He cracked his neck, going back out the door he came in, speaking over his shoulder as he went.
"Just get them boxed in. I wanna blow off some steam."
Normally he'd just use [Psychokinesis] to handle it quickly, but he was getting rather tired of their incessant stalking.
After about a minute of silence as he stood in front of the ship's airlock, Granolah's voice came onto the intercom.
"Target locked."
The airlock hissed open before he'd finished speaking, as Knox was getting rather impatient. A layer of barrier Ki appeared around him immediately, letting him dive into space without hesitation.
The ship had stopped smoothly, sat in the midst of a sprawling field of tumbling rock and ice. The pursuing Frieza Force fleet, a mix of various ships of different sizes, was forced to slow to a crawl to avoid collisions with the surroundings.
Knox floated in the middle of space for a moment, glaring down at the struggling ships below.
Then he moved.
KR-SHOOOOOM!
Straight through the main ship.
The ship ruptured as he flew. A Knox-shaped hole tore through its bridge, its bay, and out the other side in a spray of shredded metal and frozen bodies. The crippled vessel hovered silently, its innards exposed to the abyss of space.
He didn't slow down.
Knox became a blur of absolute violence. He slammed fist first through the cockpit of one of the smaller ships, his momentum carrying him out through its engine block, which detonated in his wake.
He moved through the fleet like a scythe through wheat, an unyielding force of ruin.
With speed, mass, and an utter disregard for his opponents.
In less than ten seconds, it was over.
Knox hovered in the center of the destruction, the thin barrier around him smeared with frozen fluids and chunks of viscera that weren't his.
He floated back to the airlock with a small burst of Ki. Walking into the ship, the scent of sweat had been replaced with ozone and superheated metal.
"Haah… I needed that."
Normally, he wouldn't have bothered to deal with them in such a brutal, intimate way. The credits gained from killing them would've been the same either way.
But they were starting to get annoying.
Knox walked back into the command room with a small smile on his face.
"That was rather therapeutic. You two should try it if they come back."
Marzette clicked her mandibles before she spoke, her tone indicative of how she felt about that offer.
"Hm. No thanks. The more pressing matter, however, is how they keep finding us. This is the thirteenth fleet since we left Planet Cereal."
Granolah hummed quietly.
"Are you certain this ship is clean? No trackers from its previous owners?"
Knox waved him off.
"Nah, that ain't possible. We got this thing custom made from the Galactic Patrol. We traded in our previous ship—now that one might've been bugged to high heaven."
"Custom made? From scratch, you mean? How long did its construction take?"
Knox frowned at the question, then looked to Marzette who shrugged.
"Roughly a day in my time, I think."
Granolah pressed some keys on the control panel, looking up the conversion of Earth time to Galactic Standard time before he continued. His eyes widened slightly when he found it.
"That's… not possible. A ship of this quality, even with their resources, would've taken multiple days at the minimum. They must've retrofitted an existing vessel."
The implication was obvious.
If their ship was an old enemy warship, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for it to have hidden trackers on it. But it didn't sit right with Knox that the Galactic Patrol was that sloppy.
They weren't that incompetent, were they?
"...Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to call up the GP. I mean, might as well, right?"
"On it."
Granolah quickly began clicking buttons on the control panel, opening up the comms channel and requesting a private chat with Commander Sakana.
After a bit of time, a hologram of her face appeared in front of them, like a video chat.
Her hair was a bit out of place, and there were bags under her eyes, as if she had been up for days on end. She stared into the screen with an exasperated look.
"Hello, Creed. If you're calling about trying to submit a bounty submission before the deadline, know that you don't have to. The credits are automatically deposited upon–"
"That ain't why we're calling, buddy. Did you… did you even bother to look at how many bounties I've submitted already?"
She stared at him, a dead look in her eyes.
"No. So… what's this about, then?"
"The ship you gave us. Was it a refurbished one, or whatever you call it?"
One of her brows lifted. She looked off to the side, typing something swiftly on an interface he couldn't see. Her eyes flickered over the words, before she refocused on Knox.
"The original frame was Galactic Patrol design, we just reused it for your unique specifications. Was that all you called for?"
Now Knox was even more confused. If the ship was clean, and the GP was supposedly on their side…
How the hell were the Frieza Force finding them?
"Hold on a moment," Marzette interrupted. "Sakana, do you have any connections to those within Frieza's army at the moment? Someone who knows what they're generally up to?"
"A mole, you mean? Yes, we have a few, though none of them are very high in their command chain."
"That's fine, we just need to know if there has been any major developments lately."
Knox glanced at Granolah, who looked back at him equally confused. He shrugged while Granolah thinned his lips, both not really knowing where this conversation was going.
After a little back and forth, Sakana finally leaned back, satisfied after finding a piece of data.
"Ah, here it is. ...Hmm, that's interesting. It seems as though they've set a high reward for the person who can subdue or kill a certain someone. Congrats, Creed, you've got yourself a bounty on your head. What'd you do to get them all riled up?"
Knox blinked, then realized what she said.
Oddly enough, an excited smile suddenly split his face.
"Ooh, I've got a bounty? How much are we talking? Is it comparable to whoever has the highest bounty in their–"
He caught the bemused looks from Marzette and Granolah, and the profoundly lost stare from Sakana.
'I'm in Dragon Ball… right. Not One Piece.'
He coughed, awkwardly smoothing his expression.
"Never mind. Uh, I don't know. Random soldiers keep appearing one after the other ever since we got rid of the Heeters, but–"
"You did what?!"
Sakana sat up straight in her seat, leaning in so close to the camera her face was distorted. Regaining a bit of composure after a moment, she rapidly began pressing buttons on her interface before quickly reading over the data.
Then she leaned back in her chair, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"I… I have no words."
"Uhm…" Knox stood there awkwardly. "I thought you'd be happier about this? Why do you look like you're about to cry or something?"
"Are you kidding…?"
For a moment, she looked genuinely on the verge of tears, her shoulders slumping in what appeared to be utter defeat.
Then, she slammed her palms flat on her desk, lurching forward with a sudden, wild grin that was completely unhinged.
"I'm fucking ecstatic!"
Knox, Marzette, and Granolah all flinched back at the abrupt shift.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?!" she continued, her voice rising. "That family of conniving, backstabbing, cosmic leeches has been a thorn in our side for decades! Do you know how annoying it is to have them hide behind everything they're doing being 'technically legal', and then, when we find irrefutable proof of their wrongdoings, they just pressure us with the threat of Gas?! And if we upped the stakes, they'd just hide behind Frieza's skirts, a bureaucratic nightmare wrapped in–"
"Okay, uh," Knox cut in. "This is all very interesting, and I'm glad we're helping out, but it doesn't really help us with our problem."
Sakana's manic energy subsided, though her smile remained.
"Problem?"
"The whole reason we called is because the Frieza Force keeps finding us no matter how well we hide. If they keep doing so, they're going to follow us all the way to Earth and turn the place into a warzone."
"I think I've figured it out."
Everyone looked at Marzette as she clicked her mandibles. She quite literally couldn't smile, but Knox felt as though she were radiating a smug aura.
"The bounty on Knox's head was written roughly one month ago, correct?"
"..." Everyone was staring at Sakana now. "Huh? Oh, uh… yeah, that seems about right. How'd you know?"
"Because that is precisely the time in which we got rid of the Heeters. But if there was a camera then there would be a bounty on both mine and Knox's head, not only his. Which means Elec must've directly contacted them before he died, and they only have records for Knox."
Knox snapped his finger in realization.
"When he went into that side room! I'd almost forgotten he did that."
Suddenly, Granolah quietly spoke up.
"The Heeters were cunning. It wouldn't be beyond Elec to attach a tracker onto your person. Your clothes, or perhaps something you took from their base."
"Maybe," Knox conceded. "That sounds about right…"
He closed his eyes, his brow furrowing in concentration. A faint, invisible wave of mental energy pulsed out from him, not to move objects, but to feel. He probed every inch of his own body, his undersuit, the deck beneath his feet, the very walls of the ship, searching for any foreign object that didn't belong.
Suddenly, his mental energy became more efficient, forming into a perfect bubble that encased the ship.
[Extrasensory Perception (F)] skill acquired!
By projecting a subtle bubble of mental energy, your awareness extends beyond the limits of the five senses. Within this field, every shape, movement, and presence is perceived with acute detail.
+1 MIND multiplier for acquiring a mental skill.
'Oh, that's a neat new skill. Better than Ki Sense in some ways and worse than it in others.'
Yet even with the sudden skill he gained, he found nothing. After a long moment, he let out a frustrated sigh and opened his eyes.
"Nothin'. I can feel every bolt and circuit in this whole ship. Unless the tracker is microscopic or completely inert, it's not here."
They were being hunted and the only lead they had turned into a dead end, leaving them with a silent, ticking threat hidden somewhere in the void.
On the viewscreen, Sakana's eyes suddenly went wide.
All three of them snapped their attention back to her.
"You have something?" Marzette asked.
Sakana's expression twisted into one of both realization and chagrin, as if she didn't want to say her next few words.
"Knox… we uh, remembered to remove that brand, didn't we?"
Knox reached back, his fingers brushing against his nape. "...No?"
She let out a sigh, bringing a hand to her face in a loud facepalm.
"...Of course it's our fault. I knew I was forgetting something when we spoke last time. It completely left my mind to deal with it."
"Deal with what?" Granolah demanded.
"There's an uh," Sakana's tone was grim. "Material left behind when the slave brands are applied. To put it simply, the Cold Empire has a complete monopoly on it, and they have long-range detection grids that can find the unique signature it gives off."
The pieces finally clicked into place.
"So there's a tracker… In Knox's neck."
Sakana gave a single, solemn nod. "Yes."
A wave of relief washed over Knox as she confirmed it. It wasn't a complex, unsolvable mystery, but a simple physical object. Now that he knew where the tracker was, he could simply remove it.
"Oh, is that how it works? We'll just cut it out and dump it somewhere. A quick dip in the medical chamber will regrow the skin. Thanks for the help, Sakana."
Before she could reply, he went up and pressed a button, hanging up on her.
As he was leaving to go do exactly what he'd said, Marzette spoke up.
"Maybe… you shouldn't remove it."
Knox made a face of pure confusion, and turned to look at Marzette. But there was a calculated light gleaming in those compound eyes of hers that made him stop.
"...Why?"
"Think, Knox," she continued, her claws steepling. "If we know exactly how to remove the tracker, then we can get rid of it at any time. It's the perfect bait to get as many enemy soldiers where we want them."
She leaned forward, her voice dropping as she laid out a hastily made plan to Knox and Granolah. The specifics were quickly debated between the three of them, but Knox's eyes widened as he slowly realized that…
"This could work," a wicked smirk spread across his face. "Damn. And I thought I was malicious."