Gathering (98)

Dr Barrel entered the meeting hall with a worried look on his face, fearing what was coming.

As he entered the building a holographic barrier flashed into existence, blocking the exit behind him.

Inside the auiditorioim, three hooded figures were seated on high chairs on opposite sections of the room, casting a white spotlight onto Dr Barrel.

"Barrel!" an augmented voice shouted out.

"Lord Techno," Dr Barrel said kneeling in front of the voice.

"Speak of your progress," the voice said, slowly.

Dr Barrel sighed.

'I can only tell the truth,' he thought apprehensive at how the council would behave.

"Baby was unable to capture him but-"

"SILENCE!" the augmented voice bellowed, speaking at a frequency that ruptured Dr Barrel's ear device.

"You understand how lenient we were with you when we found out about your little plans right?" the voice asked angrily.

Dr Barrel gritted his teeth and bowed his head, knowing that any response would do more harm than good.

"Furthermore, we expanded your project way beyond its proportion, allowing your creation to be far stronger and intelligent than you could ever make it!" the voice continued.

"So tell me for what reason were you unable to capture that Saiyan boy?" the voice asked, genuinely perplexed.

"It's not my fault! Baby had calculated his Power Level to be around 40 billion!" Dr Barrel said defensively.

The room of hooded and cloaked figures was completely silent.

"Hahahahahahaha!"

"Pffffffffffft!"

"Kill him"

WSH!

One of the hooded cloaked figures arose from their seat and stood up.

Dr Barrel blinked and the hooded figure was in front of him, two mechanical red eyes staring down at him from within the cloak.

"Please don't-"

Wsh!

A soft boom rang out as the figure slashed across its a metallic arm, waving it precisely causing it to zip through Dr Barrel's torso, dissecting him cleanly.

"Dissolve him, the slut in the castle has disrupted our sales networks so his organs aren't worth anything from the time being," another voice spoke viciously.

The hooded figure pulled off its mechanical wrist, pouring through it a corrosive solvent that ate away at Dr Barrel's body, making it disappear at a visible rate.

The hooded figure then flashed back to their seat in the dark auditorium, moving soundlessly.

"Now we can formally start the meeting, Lord Bio, how is the Baby expansion project coming along?" Lord Techno said carefully.

Lord Bio snickered.

"You just killed him so that we could gain full control of Baby! Not that I blame you. Thanks to the work of Lord Vanquo, we have the DNA of some races in our databases, unfortunately, all of them seem to be nothing special and a vast downgrade compared to the Saiyans on our own turf," Lord Bio said bitterly.

"We can't touch those Saiyans, their brute strength only increases as the days pass and if we acted earlier then it might have been a viable option but somebody wanted to cover their own back instead of getting the job done," Lord Vanquo, the figure who killed Dr Barrel, said stoically.

"We couldn't have acted earlier! That Saiyan brat was still within the range of Skynet and if he heard something went wrong he would have come back immediately! If someone had blocked his access like I requested then-"

"It was impossible," Lord Techno responded quickly.

"Educating that devil was the biggest mistake our kind has ever made, nurturing a snake that could strike at any moment. The imbeciles at the education board actually let him choose what he wanted to learn and if he picked anything other than programming he'd be in our grasp by now," Lord Techno said irritatedly.

They needed to tread extremely carefully around the Saiyans, they had all analysed and scrutinised the footage from the tournament and understood what precautions needed to be taken.

"In any case," Lord Vanquo said breaking the silence.

"We officially have a planet under our control, we can abandon Sythis-"

"And get shot out of the sky? The slut in the castle was so proud about predicting our movements she publically announced and displayed the Hatchiyak's aerial sniping capabilities," Lord Techno said, mildly annoyed.

"We can go public and produce some martyrs," Lord Vanquo recommended.

"I don't like that plan," Lord Bio said simply.

"I'll review the footage Baby recorded and make corresponding adjustments, now that he is in space he can assist on New Plant and we can make all of our upgrades for him over there," Lord Techno concluded.

"What was the name of the embarrassment that assisted Barrel with the initial construction of Baby?" Lord Vanquo asked, remembering a particular fellow.

"Dr Controller, he's been making steady improvements to Zes over the last year but I think he's still paranoid about the events on that day," Lord Techno said, mentally retrieving Dr Controller's file.

"I say we recruit him, he's not a complete idiot and his fear of the Saiyans will make him a suitable pawn for us to expend," Lord Vanquo concluded.

"Don't get us caught," Lord Bio said slowly.

Lord Vanquo scoffed.

"I'm the one who got us off the Planet, my people will handle it so don't worry Dr Tweezer," Lord Vanquo said snarkily.

"Say my name again, Rocket, I dare you," Lord Bio said, his metallic brows narrowing as he spoke.

"Don't fight already, you babies, we still have to figure out how to erase the evidence of Baby's creation from the Supercomputers, that's the only crumb that could get us caught," Lord Techno said worriedly.

The other two Lords scoffed.

"That sounds like a you problem, you're the alleged Technology expert so you should be able to figure it out," Lord Bio said dismissively, activating his teleporter and vanishing.

"Tweezer isn't wrong, I'll secure us another Planet while you and your little gang of keyboard warriors go tie up any loose ends," Lord Vanquo said, using his own teleporter.

Lord Techno grit his teeth frustratedly.

Dr Barrel, whether Lord Techno wanted to admit it or not, had a very good idea.

An idea so good that it would only work once.

Lord Techno and his faction quickly rooted themselves with Dr Barrel and infatuated themselves with Baby as it was the key to overthrowing Queen Nana and taking the throne but Dr Barrel in his haste forget to cover his tracks and alerted the Royal Technology Society about Baby's existence, forcing him into a bad position.

Either let Dr Barrel get caught and allow the RTS to develop their own versions of Baby and prepare countermeasures or seize Dr Barrel's creation and use it for their own advantage from there onwards.

Today Lord Techno had already erased one of his options.

It was because as each day passed, circles of hackers and anti-royalists were being continually rounded up and imprisoned on the basis of treason. This was positive though because it allowed Lord Vanquo to steal and monopolise all of their property without repercussion but it meant that the water was less muddy.

While he was sure that the information relating to all of their exploits was guarded, that one clue left foolishly by Dr Barrel could bring their entire operation crumbling down.

'And all this effort for that miserable Saiyan' Lord Techno thought, using his own teleporter, leaving the hall.

[Storyteller: The conspiracy thickens! It turns put life on Planey Sythis isn't sunshine and rainbows after all! Who are these masked figures? What do they want to do with Broly? And what special trump card in their possession gives them such confidence? Find out in the next chapter of Dragon Ball Revised!]