Nina Felt It Before the Shockwave
She was mid-meditation when her ki flinched in recognition of something close to her.
Her eyes snapped open, golden pupils tightening.
"…Bala."
The pressure was wild, condensed and densely layered, folding inward the way Broko taught only after decades of mastery.
Crude. Incomplete but unmistakable . Her child has done it, her mom instincts roared
Her hand pressed to her stomach instinctively.
"You're learning fast ," she whispered, pride cutting through the worry. "Good… because you'll need it."
Then another sensation wrong.
Her expression hardened flashback of her previous life watching dragon ball, something she didn't like were the cloning, that cell guy but this was more saiyan than anything else .
"So they've finally sent it."
...
The sky split open over the badlands where the faction waited.
He descended without flair, no aura flaring just weight.
The remaining Saiyans formed up
engineers turned combatants, warriors scarred from Namek and worse, veterans who had survived extinction once already.
At the front stood Rathok.
Broad-shouldered. One horn broken. Tail scarred white at the tip.
Broko's first captain.
The one who taught the younger Saiyans how not to die stupidly.
Rathok cracked his neck. "Clone or not," he said calmly, "you don't belong here ."
The clone tilted his head.
"Designation unnecessary," it replied.
"Your extinction probability is acceptable."
Then it moved.
The first exchange shattered stone for kilometers.
Three Saiyans struck together a feint from the right and a bind binding ki construct following through with a pierce attack using a ki blade
The clone flowed through it.
It didn't fight like Broko.
It fought like Broko optimized, stripped of emotion, hesitation and loyalty.
One Saiyan lost an arm.
Another was driven into the earth hard enough to liquefy rock beneath him.
They adapted.
Yardrat ki displacement techniques .
Ki nets.
Rotational flanking attacks Broko drilled into them for when exhaustion set in.
For a moment
They pushed it back hard .
Rathok smiled grimly. "See? It bleeds."
The clone looked down at the scorched line across its chest.
"…Not meaningfully."
..
Rathok charged anyway.
Not because it was smart.
Because someone had to anchor the line.
He grappled the clone mid-air, tail locking around its leg, forearm braced against its throat.
"NOW!" he roared.
The others fired.
The clone did something new.
It let the attacks hit.
Then it drove two fingers into Rathok's chest.
Not a blast.
A pulse.
Compressed ki detonated inside Rathok's core.
His eyes went wide.
"CAPTAIN !!! "
Rathok looked down once at his squad … then smiled.
"Fight better than me."
His body collapsed in on itself, armor crumpling as if crushed by gravity.
The clone let the corpse fall, then silence followed.
...
Auxiliary fighters moved instantly.
Smoke screens.
Decoy ki flares.
Two grabbed Rathok's body, what was left of it and vanished via short-range displacement.
The clone tried to pursue.
Five young Saiyans intercepted knowing they wouldn't win only delay and buy time.
..
They didn't break even after Rathok fell.
They fought dirtier just like their leader taught them, a desperate beast is deadly.
Ki traps.
Self-damaging overcharges.
Sacrificial holds meant to immobilize, not survive.
The clone took damage now not enough to win now but real enough to matter in the long run.
Enough to make it pause now and again .
Enough to make it recalculate and rethink approaches, it was no longer on point like before, it was being forced to hesitate.
Then suddenly it withdrew.
Straight up.
Into the clouds, no "I'll be back" just absence.
..
Back on the Island
Rathok's body was laid to rest in the stone chamber beneath the base.
Nina stood there when they arrived.
She didn't cry openly .
She placed a hand over his chest and closed her eyes.
"…You did well," she said softly.
Outside, Broko arrived.
He looked once.
Jaw tightening.
"That clone learned how to kill us ," he said quietly. "But not why we survive."
He turned toward the horizon, toward where Bala's ki still pulsed faintly, compressed and sharpening.
"Our children are changing," he continued. "And now… so must we too."