SAIYAN EFFECT

CHAPTER 15 – A SUMMONING

“AAAHH!!” a scream followed by a massive earthy thud broke through the air.

Out of context, that might cause someone to worry.

“You ok down there?” Gohan called from his position fifty feet in the air.

A long low groan followed that response, and he couldn’t help chuckling as he
floated down to his unfortunate victi… student.

After another long moment, the student, a large hump-backed krogan named Wrex,
sat up.

“Did you really need to hit me that hard?” he definitely didn’t whine, one hand going
to the impact point on his stomach. Tough guys don’t whine after all.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” Gohan chided. “This is nothing compared to what I went
through as a kid. You should see what Piccolo put me through when I was just four
years old.”

Wrex gave him an incredulous stare. “You started training at four?” he asked
sceptically.

“Oh, for sure,” Gohan nodded. “It just after the first time my dad died and we were
expecting an invasion on Earth by the remaining saiyans at the time. Piccolo took me
and left me on my own in a jungle and told me I had to survive on my own. After six
months, he started training me, which basically meant that he just beat the crap out
of me every day so that I would grow stronger.”

Wrex grunted. “Sounds intense.”

“Yep,” Gohan said cheerfully. “It almost worked too. By the time I was five I was
defending Earth from invading aliens that could conquer anything we had at the time,
beings that were much stronger than me. If it wasn’t for my father coming back from
the dead the first time, I wouldn’t have made it.”

Wrex stared. “That’s the second time that you’ve mentioned someone being dead
and coming back in the last few minutes,” he rumbled. “Is that one of your abilities
that you can teach? Learning how to come back from the dead?”

Gohan burst out laughing. “No,” he replied. “Nothing like that. In fact, if you come
with me later today then you will see how we do it. But,” and his carefree expression
changed into a swift glare with a heavy oppressive weight on his shoulders that said
Gohan was flexing his power that froze Wrex in his armoured boots, “if you so much
as think of sharing what you learn without our permission, I will not hesitate to end
your life as quickly, yet painfully, as possible. Understood?”

The question was rhetorical, and they both knew it, but still, Wrex’s head nodded so
quickly that it almost threatened to come off.

The weight vanished instantly and Gohan’s smile turned blinding. “Great!” he said,
overly cheerfully.

Wrex stared at him, deadpanning. It was easy to look at his Saiyan teacher and think
that the man was too happy and not serious enough, or that he was too book
focussed and sunk too deeply into his desk job as an ambassador. Then, when
training, he turned into the sort of sadist that would beat you into the ground with a
smile on his face that made you think that he could kill you without a thought or
effort.

It both terrified and motivated Wrex to work harder.

“Well, I think that’s enough training for now,” Gohan said, handing over a small bean,
one that Wrex had become extremely familiar with over the last few months.

Wrex gratefully took the Senzu bean and ate the life restoring miracle treat, feeling
his energy return and his aches vanish instantly. He had no idea how something so
small could completely heal you, but he wasn’t complaining. It worked and that was
enough for him.
Though he would confess that he thought they could make a killing if they sold this
among the Citadel.

“You said that you wanted to talk after training?” Gohan prompted, bringing Wrex’s
mind back on topic.

Right, he had said that before they had started today. Gohan being the hardass he is
had said that any chance to talk could wait until after the violence took place and
Wrex had earned his beating.

His trainer would have made a great krogan.

“Yeah,” Wrex replied. “I thought you might like to know, there has been a lot of
people talking in the underground. Someone out there is trying to get Saiyan DNA.
There’s even been a bounty set up to get it, a big one too. Big enough that it would
be enough to support most of the smaller crews for years if they were smart with it.
Of course, getting your DNA has been pretty hard to do it so far because the only
ones that we tend to see are the bosses, like you or your dad or Prince Trunks. You
guys are so strong that anyone getting your blood or something is unlikely. But if
they got enough spit or hair, they might try something if they had enough of it. I’m not
sure how much they would need though.”

“Our DNA, huh?” Gohan mused, mostly to himself. “For something like that I would
expect that it is either the salarians or the asari. The salarians probably are trying to
get their genophage on us made up that you mentioned when we first met, while the
asari are probably trying to give birth to a kid that has Saiyan and asari DNA to try
and reclaim some sort of superiority that they lost when ki took over as the most
powerful force in your galaxy from biotics.”

“It could also be the Shadow Broker,” Wrex added helpfully, having thought about
the possibilities. “He’s been known to try get bounties on certain individuals before. A
Saiyan would probably be on his list. Hell, it could even just be a random mad
scientist. There’s plenty of them out there.”

Gohan cocked his head. “You’ve never mentioned the Shadow Broker before.”
Wrex shrugged. “Not much to tell,” he admitted. “No one knows for sure who the
Broker is. All anyone knows is that the Shadow Broker is the largest information
broker in Citadel space. Has agents in nearly every level of government. Rumour is
that he uses Spectres to run jobs for him in exchange for important information, but
even without them there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people running around in
the galaxy working for him or contracted to him. I even did some bounties for him
awhile back. He is pretty ruthless though. If he can’t bribe you for something, he has
enough hunter teams to try and force the issue.”

“That right?” Gohan said. “So, we have a few more people to keep a look out for?
That’s easy enough. Like I told you before, even if someone managed to get a
genophage or some such thing for us, I doubt it would take more than an hour before
we had it purged.”

Wrex rumbled in his chest about that but didn’t say anything. He still didn’t know how
but he knew that the level of confidence that Gohan and the other Saiyan leaders
had in being able to stop the genophage was absolute. He would kill to be able to
give that to his people. Which meant more training so that he would be able to beat
them into shape.

Thing is, it was working. Ever since he managed to unlock his ki a month ago, he
had noticed a significant increase in his strength and speed. His ability to take a hit
had gone up too. He hadn’t bothered to test how it would affect his biotics, if at all,
but that was something that he would work out later. But from where he had been
before he had started meditating for his ki, and wasn’t meditating a bitch, to where
he was today, he would have to say that he stood ahead of every other krogan in the
galaxy.

“How long till you think I am ready to start heading out and taking over the krogan?”
he asked his trainer. “I want to get my people sorted out so you can cure them
sooner rather than later.”

Gohan looked at him consideringly. “I’m not sure,” he said. “You’ve made some
impressive growth already, tripling your power level from what I can sense. I would
say, without using a reader to check, that your power level is probably about fifty or
sixty. Most krogan would only be about a ten or fifteen without ki training, which we
checked with our scouters when we first met you. The stronger ones would be about
twenty, with only the very best and strongest reaching fifty. It doesn’t sound much,
but a standard human would probably be about level five without ki training, so you
would start ahead of them. All in all, I would say another few months and you would
be about a hundred. Then you could start taking over Tuchanka. But I would think it
would be better to wait longer to avoid all doubt. Once you get stronger, we can
really kick it up a notch.”

Wrex couldn’t help feeling please about that. He was already probably the strongest
krogan alive. Another few months and he would be the strongest in history.

Still, it did bring up an interesting question. “What would your level be?” he couldn’t
help asking.

Gohan’s expression turned thoughtful. “You know,” he said slowly, “I haven’t

checked in a long time. Not for more than a hundred years actually. Without being
transformed, so my peak base power, I think my power would be over a hundred
million. I could be wrong though; it could be more. And obviously transforming boosts
that by a lot.”

“Obviously.” Wrex could almost hear his mind shattering at that, like breaking glass.
He had just been feeling proud of being fifty and his boss was over a hundred
million. He must really be considered an ant under his boss’s star ship.

Finally, he just dismissed it all with the shake of his head. “We really are just
nobodies to all of you saiyans, aren’t we?”

Gohan grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “Ah, don’t worry about it,” he said.
“If you went through what I had gone through and for as long as I had gone through
it, your power level would be much higher. When you’re ready, we’ll get you into high
gravity training. That’ll boost your power a lot faster. But in the meantime, I am going
to start you on wearing weights all the time so that you are always training.”

A tenseness that he hadn’t noticed left Wrex at that. He had waited more than a
century to fix his people. If he had managed to triple his power level in two months of
just exercising with his ki unlocked, then he could afford to wait another few years to
get it higher. Besides, he was a krogan, he had plenty of time. Especially if he was
with Gohan. There wasn’t anything that could stop Gohan that wasn’t already a
Saiyan.

“Anyway,” Gohan’s voice cut into his thoughts, “I need to do something on the
Citadel before I take you to see how we are going to raise the dead. You ready to
head back?”
Wrex gave an affirmative grunt and headed over to the smaller alien. Gohan put a
hand on his shoulder and gave the, by now, familiar stance of putting his fingers to
his forehead to take them across the galaxy in an instant.

Yeah, Wrex was looking forward to learning that little trick. Screw paying for passage
on starships.

Valern did his best to rein in his, now regular, cough as he finished the last of his
handover to his replacement, the newest councillor from the Salarian Union to the
Citadel Council, Linron. Over the last few months, his coughing had managed to
worsen at a slightly higher rate than expected. Though he couldn’t know for sure,
there was a certain smugness in Linron’s mannerisms that told him that it was
possible that this was not necessarily accidental.

Not that Valern held it against his replacement. It was the salarian way. He just hated
that he had no idea how it was being done.

Valern had decided that, seeing as he was about to retire anyway, there was no
need to hold out a few extra months before he passed the position on. It would only
delay the inevitable. He was still getting too old and Linron was still going to be the
next councillor and none of it would truly matter if it was today, or a week from now.
It just meant that he was hoping that his health decline would slow down to expected
levels. It was only going to hurt him to stay in office, for no net gain.

“I believe that is everything,” Valern said, standing across from the younger salarian.
“The office and the responsibilities it carries are now yours.”

“Before you leave, I must say,” Linron said with a slight sneer, “that I am
disappointed with how you approached these saiyans. An enemy as dangerous as
they are means that we must, without reservation, have a way to counter them and
prevent them from becoming a risk to the Citadel and the Union. To have let them
continue as they are after the Batarian Massacre is a show of weakness.”
“And as I have said before,” Valern said with a sigh, “your desire to institute a
genophage targeted to the saiyans is short-sighted and dangerous. It took years
before the genophage impact started to make itself known. If something like that was
done to the saiyans, with our history of creating such a virus, they would be far more
likely to notice it and assign blame to us for creating it. And with their abilities, they
could make their way to any of our planets at any time and never need to combat our
fleets to attack our people directly, as they did the batarians. Tell me, how did that go
for the Hegemony?”

“And yet you never tried,” Linron countered angrily, splaying his hands on the desk.
“Our people are much smarter and more capable than the backwards batarians. It
would only be a matter of time before our scientists find a way to make a genophage
and our strategists would be far more than capable of coming up with a ruse to
ensure that our people were never caught or to assign blame to another party.
Implementing the plan would be child’s play to the STG.”

Valern could only shake his head at the arrogance that Linron was showing. It was
the same arrogance that was being shown by the dalatrasses; a belief that they were
right and far more competent than they had any right to believe themselves capable
of. Superior even, to races that had been travelling the stars for centuries due to their
position on the Council and with the STG as their tool.

“You only think that because you don’t take into our account that we have a history
of doing a genophage against the krogan. If another one happened, it wouldn’t
matter what paltry excuses were invented to shift the blame. The other races and the
general public, would assume it was us from that alone. But it doesn’t matter now,”
Valern replied, cutting off the argument before it could gain further steam and Linron
could reply. “My time is now up. Yours has begun and any such recommendations
are now yours to make.”

Linron sat back down smugly in his chair and turned away from Valern to look at the
terminal, a needless powerplay. “Yes,” he said firmly. “They are. Now if you will
excuse me, I have work to do.”

Valern didn’t nod before he left, a clear sign of disrespect towards the rudeness of
the new councillor, though just as rude as the dismissal had been. He just turned
and headed out, making his way to the aircar that was waiting for him. As he did, he
pressed a few buttons unseen on his omnitool, sending a message that he had
prepared in case Linron and the dalatrasses were insistent on their genophage plan.
After all, while he may not be the councillor anymore, he would still do all he could to
make sure that the new councillor and the dalatrasses didn’t condemn his people to
the same fate as the batarians.

Goku stood in a good mood, hopeful that what was about to happen would go the
way that he had wanted. He had been concerned with how the war against the
batarians would go with Vegeta in charge.

It was not that he was against a response against the people that had sent an army
to attack the saiyans. It wasn’t even the fact that they were going to need to kill lots
of people. Goku knew that and had made peace with killing a long time ago. After all,
how many grunts had he killed over the years? Thousands.

Every time some petty warlord tried to take over, there were plenty of brutes and
thugs from all the different races out there that were drawn to violence like moths to
a flame. It didn’t matter what species they were, it was the same with nearly every
single race that he had come across, with very few exceptions, such as the
namekians. But even there, there were plenty of people that were interested in a
good fight.

The biggest concern he had had, was that he didn’t really trust Vegeta to be
measured about it. Goku knew the second that Vegeta had declared war that it
would end with the batarian’s home planet being completely destroyed. The Saiyan
King was just too prideful for any other result to take place after their new home
planet was attacked.

For all that the batarian leader had ordered the attack on Mindoir to capture saiyans,
Goku didn’t think that the average batarian deserved to die as collateral damage in
Vegeta’s campaign against the pirates and slaving bands. They were likely mostly
just people that were living their lives and trying to make ends meet, just like any
other normal person in the universes. Or, at least, Goku assumed that was the case.

Goku wasn’t naïve though. He knew that the batarian culture survived on slavery.
The difference for him though, was that unlike Vegeta and the resurrected saiyans,
he had never lived under the yolk of slavery. It wasn’t as personal for him as it was
for them. Sure, the slavery of the saiyans was not the same as the slavery of the
batarians. They were foot soldiers and fighters that Frieza had commanded. Not
slaves like the batarians used.
Still, Goku was against slavery and was in agreement that slavery had to be
removed from the galaxy. He just didn’t think that Vegeta’s method was the way to
go about it. There had to be a better way that didn’t kill millions, if not billions, of
people.

Which is why Goku had insisted on using the wishes today. To correct that mistake.

Gathering the dragon balls was easier on Mindoir than it was on Earth. With Earth’s
much larger population, it was harder to hide the dragon balls, or risk them being
discovered by a random person.

Thus, with Dende’s permission, the dragon balls had been moved to Mindoir where
they were guarded by Vegeta’s family, with one of the dragon balls always on
Vegeta’s person to prevent anyone being tempted to steal it, and a small crew of
guardian namekians, though they mainly stayed out of sight. Dende remained on
Earth as its guardian, just as Kame had. The dragon balls were still linked to him
though, so he had a contingent of saiyans that lived on Earth swing past the Lookout
regularly.

It made it easier that Vegeta was essentially immortal now so there was no risk that
he would be calling on Shenron to make him invulnerable. After all, his pride wouldn’t
allow him to be called a coward by his rival.

Gathering the dragon balls was the work of only a few minutes, but they waited until
the people who were allowed to be involved, which basically meant the Immortals, as
the main population of saiyans referred to them as, or the Super Saiyan Gods.

Except for their special guest, that is.

“I’m still not sure about this,” Pan said from where she was standing with her arms
folded, near the drop off.

They had chosen a cliff face that would allow them to be able to call Shenron and
have him float nearby but not be in too high up from them. Seeing as no one except
Gohan’s krogan apprentice had to worry about falling off a cliff, it was deemed by
Vegeta and Trunks to be an ideal place for a summoning. Plans had already been
made to build up a shrine or other architecture that would make the place special, or
at least add some ceremony to a summoning.

“Which part?” Trunks asked from his position, sitting next to the gathered dragon
balls.

“Having an alien know about the dragon balls,” Pan replied. “It seems like we could
end up losing a major advantage if he blabs and tells someone about it.”

The krogan shuffled. “I already promised Gohan,” he rumbled gruffly. “I ain’t telling
anyone anything about this. I ain’t that stupid.”

Pan grunted. “Well, at least he seems that smart,” she said sarcastically.

“It’ll be fine!” Goku couldn’t help pipe up cheerfully. “Besides, he’s Gohan’s
apprentice. I’m sure Gohan wouldn’t pick someone that was the type of person to try
and steal from us.”

Truthfully though, while Goku was indeed certain that Wrex wasn’t going to try
anything because there was no chance of him succeeding, he wasn’t scared of the
idea of other aliens learning about ki. There were plenty of different beings out there
in the universe that were able to use it. Some of them became strong, and no matter
how upset he had been at the beginning of the Batarian War, he always looked
forward to fighting against strong opponents.

That said, he was also aware of the nature of the krogan and how violent they
naturally were. Unless they were able to come up with some way to curb that, he
didn’t support the idea of giving training in ki usage to all of them. There was just the
risk of too many petty warlords out there using ki to bully their way around and make
people suffer.

While none of them would likely ever be a challenge for Goku or Vegeta, they would
still be able to hurt plenty of people before they could be stopped. And while he
would happily stop tyrants at every turn, he wasn’t going to risk other people’s lives
for his own desire to fight. He was willing to risk himself, like the time he had hired
Hit to try assassinate him so that he could fight him at full power, he wasn’t about to
risk other people who would be powerless against their attackers.
That meant that if they were to give the knowledge of using ki out, it would be done
at their choosing, to people who were worthy. Or at least, not going to go out and
murder a planet for the fun of it.

“Is Shenron going to be strong enough to grant this wish?” Goten asked from the
sidelines where he was standing, breaking into Goku’s thoughts.

Goku nodded. “He should,” he confirmed. “Shenron was really powerful already and
about fifty years ago Dende redid the enchantments to put more energy in them. It’s
nowhere near the Super Dragon Balls, of course, but it could probably revive all of
the Earth and its people if it got destroyed.”

A flicker announced the arrival of Vegeta, wearing his customary jumpsuit and
armour, holding the last dragon ball. Goku straightened up happily, ready to do this.

“Are we ready to get this over with?” Vegeta demanded in his raspy voice. “I’m tired
of hearing Kakarot whinging. I’m looking forward to having some peace on this
matter.”

“Sure thing,” Trunks said, standing to greet his father. “We were just waiting on you.”

“And now I am waiting on you,” Vegeta said with a smirk, tossing the last dragon ball
over to his son.

“Get ready for this,” Goku could hear Gohan tell his charge. “It’s nothing like you’ve
ever seen.”

Goku grinned at the large alien before turning to Trunks who stood before the, now
glowing, dragon balls.

“Rise Shenron, eternal dragon!” Trunks called loudly, his tone pitched for a solemn
ritual, raising both his arms in the air. “And hear the wishes of he who summons
you!”
A pillar of light burst forth from the dragon balls, reaching far into the heavens. The
sounding sky darkened in response and a great weight seemed to fall on them as
the pressure of the dragon’s power seemed to be exuded by the dragon balls.
Finally, as if appearing to rise out of the glowing balls, the great dragon Shenron
rose into the sky.

Goku had seen this many times over the last couple hundred years, but it never got
old. He turned to look at the krogan and grinned happily at the dumbfounded stare
that the alien gave as he gazed up at the massive dragon god.

“What?” he stammered. “What is this?”

No one answered him, everyone refocussing on Shenron.

“I am Shenron,” the dragon growled out in its deep voice that echoed across the sky,
making them all feel as if their very souls were vibrating. “Who has summoned me to
grant their wishes?”

“I did,” Trunks called out confidently.

“Very well,” Shenron rumbled. “You have only two wishes. What is your first wish?”

“My first wish is that you repair the planet Khar’shan, only without the buildings,”
Trunks said. “Make the planet whole again and have it be in its natural form.”

There was a long pause before the dragon’s red eyes glowed. “Your wish is
granted,” he confirmed. “What is your final wish?”

Trunks looked over at Goku and Goku knew that this wish was the one he had asked
for.

“I wish for you to revive all of the batarians who were innocent and didn’t support
slavery that died in the Batarian War and any missed slaves that also died, and for
them to be revived on Khar’shan. And if you could also tell us how many that were
revived, that would be appreciated.”
The dragon’s eyes glowed again. “Your wish is granted,” he growled. “Four hundred
thousand batarians have been revived on the planet Khar’shan. You have no further
wishes.”

Goku’s heart fell. So few?

With his job done, the dragon glowed a brilliant gold and seemed to be sucked back
into the dragon balls. It took a few seconds, but the sky returned to its natural light
and the dragon balls stopped glowing. The heavy feeling disappeared, and the
dragon was gone.

After another moment, the dragon balls turned to stone and rose in the air together,
before shooting off in different directions to reset for the next phase.

Goku ignored Pan jumping up to catch one of the deactivated dragon balls to return
to Vegeta for safe keeping, as he thought about the number of resurrected batarians.
Four hundred thousand. The death toll on Khar’shan alone had been more than ten
billion. That was after the slaves had been completely freed by the saiyans.

A mere four hundred thousand… that was worse than the number of peaceful
saiyans. He could help feeling hurt that such a low number of anti-slavery batarians
were left. He truly had hoped for more.

He shook of the depression. Four hundred thousand was still plenty of people
brought back to life. It wasn’t insignificant, no matter how much it seemed like it was
compared to the number of deaths that had occurred. Four hundred thousand souls
that hadn’t deserved death had been revived. And for now, that was enough.

“Well, that’s over,” Vegeta mused into the silence that had taken place in the wake of
the dragon’s departure. “Kakarot, we need to talk. Gohan, you’re dismissed. Take
your… student home. Everyone else can stay.”

There was a shuffling as Gohan disappeared in a flicker of instant transmission and

the remaining saiyans gathered around their king.
“I received a message from the former salarian councillor,” Vegeta began. “He
wanted to give me a warning. He said that the salarian dalatrasses and the new
salarian councillor are scheming to introduce a genophage plague on our people. He
asks that I be merciful and not take out anyone who was not involved in this action,
saying that it was only on the heads of the dalatrasses and the new councillor.

“Furthermore, he said that he had been against it from the moment that someone
had mentioned it. He has been stalling as long as he could but now that he is no
longer in power, he cannot prevent it. He said he had to tell me to make sure that his
people didn’t suffer for their leader’s arrogance.”

Pan snorted. “Arrogance is right,” she stated. “We have already completely
destroyed two fleets, a whole government system and an entire planet and yet they
think they are going to be unreachable.”

Goku frowned. “You’re not planning to go to war with the salarians now, too, are
you?” he couldn’t help asking.

Vegeta snorted. “It’s not like it would be much of a war,” he boasted. “But no, I am
not planning to do that yet. If the former councillor hadn’t sent me this message, then
I would have considered it. But since it appears to be only a few of the leaders and
the councillor, I think it will be more effective to target them directly.”

Trunks gave a smirk. “That doesn’t mean we can’t bluff a little,” he spoke up. “Get
Valern to tell us which of these… dalatrasses, are plotting against us. We can make
him think that if we know who it is that is targeting us then we will leave everyone
else alone.”

“That would make us look far better with our allies and the other races,” Goten spoke
up, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “The humans were supportive of us but even they
were a little bit nervous about us blowing up a planet. And while they will be the first
to know that we have brought it back, the are concerned that we look like the bad
guys here, and that was with the obvious villains that the batarians were. If we did
that with the salarians, I doubt that we would look like the good guys to anyone.”

Vegeta hummed and looked over at Goku. “Fine,” he conceded. “If they launch a
genophage attack against us, we will only target the dalatrasses that authorised it
and the councillor. We will also target anyone that developed it.” He glared at Goku.
“Does that satisfy your bleeding heart, Kakarot?” he asked sarcastically.
Goku gave a snort. “Fine, that works for me,” he replied. He could be happy that
there wasn’t going to be a wholesale slaughter this time.

“Good. Then we’re done here.”

The group collectively put their fingers to their heads and left the area in a flicker of
power.