Mel knelt down next to the corpse, stone-faced.
The battle had only just abated, and she'd finally been able to get close enough to the site to find Vegeta… and she had.
Probably. The clothes were the same, at least… but the head was splattered against a log in a disgusting display of blood and viscera.
Vegeta's head had exploded from the vast ki pressure that'd exploded through the air when Tarble and Slug had their initial clash. He hadn't even actually seen anything. The shockwaves alone had killed him the moment that Tarble entered the fray and both sides' power levels spiked to the hundred million range.
She placed her hand on the corpse's chest. Part of her felt nothing, and part of her wanted to destroy the planet on the spot in a fit of rage.
As Mel deliberated in her head, the underbrush rustled.
With the reflexes of someone who'd spent nearly a decade in captivity, she whipped her head around and shot the most powerful energy blast she could manage at the source of the noise, expecting an explosion.
Instead, a few seconds passed, then a massive guy, maybe even bigger than Nappa, casually appeared from the underbrush.
Mel's eyes widened. "You're a Saiyan!" She realized with a start, "You killed Vegeta."
Tater paused. "...Hello, Mel."
Both sides had complicated feelings about this meeting.
Mel didn't recognize Tater. Too much time had passed, he looked entirely different. Still, she did believe that this was the main combatant in the fight that'd just killed Vegeta. She may not have known that he was part of Tarble's team back then, but she did know that she wanted to kill him on the spot.
As for Tater, Mel actually had tried to kill him once… but now, she just looked sad, and weak. Catching her full-powered energy blast hadn't actually taken him any effort at all. She couldn't harm him, and she'd clearly just lost someone to Tarble's battle. He was cautious, but any ill will between them, from his side, at least, had already been swept under the rug.
Now, he just felt sorry for her.
Mel's squinted, calculating in her head. One of Tater's arms was still wrapped in his shirt, purple and swollen, clearly broken, but he didn't even seem to care. That either meant that he was simply so strong that the injury didn't affect his combat abilities much (which was the actual truth), or he didn't have any understanding of just how powerful she was.
Mel, personally, believed that it was some combination of the two… but it didn't change the fact that he'd just fought a battle so intense that the side-effects had blown Vegeta's head apart. That made her wary… but her pride still told her that, if they fought, she had a fighting chance. A small one, but she genuinely believed that it was there.
Tater looked down at her. She was holding the corpse in her arms, a hand on its chest, in a deeply mournful posture that he recognized from the day Cynthia had learned that her father had died of some illness while they were off traveling.
She cared about whoever that was… but they'd gotten too close to Tarble's battle and died from the shockwaves.
With a sign, Tater leaned against the tree beside him, looking as non-threatening as possible.
"What do you want?" Mel spat at him, crouching protectively over the corpse, clearly just a moment away from charging at the big Saiyan.
"The second spaceship was full of Saiyans, huh? You were chasing that… thing." Tater worked out.
"What are you talking about? We were tracking the Saiyan… you. The plans have changed, though. Get out of my sight, and I'll let you live." Mel postured.
Tater snorted, but kept his expression neutral beyond that, in a halfhearted attempt to avoid riling her up. "If you want him back, take the corpse and show me to your ship."
Mel froze. "...What do you mean? He's dead. Don't toy with me."
Tater did his best 'condescending Tarble' impression, "If you ever honestly think that you've found an impossibility, you're looking at things wrong. I lost a friend in that fight, too, so we were already going to revive him. Listen to me, and we'll bring him back, too." He explained.
Mel's face did its best impression of a gymnastics performance. This guy… was insane. But he was also so confident about it… But it was nuts, the dead were gone, they couldn't be simply brought back to life, end of story…
"...You're insane."
"I don't trust you as far as you could throw me, so I'm only giving you two choices here." Tater explained, "Come with me, show me your ship, and bring the corpse… or die right here and now."
He raised his arm threateningly. A large orb of pure ki popped out from his hand and hovered in the air.
Mel stared at it, biting her lip for a moment as she considered… but she didn't have anything to lose, at this point.
With a nod, she grabbed the body and flew into the sky, Tater close on her heels.