Ch. 22: Saibamen

Nappa pulled a small container out of his pocket. Sure enough, there were six tiny beans inside. Like a bolt out of the blue, an idea hit me.

'Shay, copy the molecular structure of those beans and send them to the Core. We might be able to cultivate Saibamen like we did Senzu Beans!' I'd never thought of that before. The idea of little people growing out of beans had totally slipped my mind. If we could cultivate them, maybe change their abilities, fighting prowess, and personalities, then they'd be incredibly useful on the Core.

The girls could probably figure it out in a few months general time (which would be about a year Core time). I felt Shay accelerate her perceptions long enough to take a sample of the beans, copy it with her powers, and send the copy off to the Core without anyone around us being any the wiser.

"You're right, Vegeta. There are six." Nappa noted once Shay finished.

"Let's use them. They've got about the same power levels, so it'll be a rather interesting fight, don't you think?" Vegeta didn't see any of us as actual fighters, but rather as punching bags with mouths. We weren't worth fighting, in his opinion.

Laughing, Nappa planted the Saibamen. "As you say, Vegeta." He said with an annoying smirk on his face. Once they were in the ground, he pulled out a bit of growth elixir and poured a few drops on each Saiba-bean. As the Z-fighters looked on, confused, the Saibamen grew from the ground almost instantaneously, evil little smirks on their ugly green faces.

"Well... at least they're shorter than I am..." Krillin joked, trying to lighten the mood. He could sense that they were each about as strong as him. 

As we watched, the Saibamen circled us, destroying rocks to show off their power. While the others seemed intimidated, it just annoyed me.

"They're brainless, crazy monsters!" Krillin exclaimed.

"They're strong, too." Piccolo added.

"This should be a pretty good matchup. These Saibamen seem spunky." Vegeta told Nappa, not really caring which side won the bout. As he figured it, the Saibamen had numbers, but the earthlings were individually stronger, though not by much. If he were to bet, he'd put it on the Saibamen, but the end result didn't really matter, since none of the earthlings stood a chance against Nappa.

"I'll take the one on the left." Krillin said, knowing that he's weaker than his other three companions, he only decided to take one.

"I've got the two beside that one, then. The one on the right's yours, Gohan. Hanna, you take the two in the center-right." Piccolo told us.

"Okay!" Gohan agreed, fire in his eyes. Were his Saiyan instincts actually working this time around? During the anime, he'd been terrified of battle, but the difference between that and this Gohan was like night and day. I must have influenced him more than I realized over the course of our childhood. I didn't respond to Piccolo, though. I had a very different idea in mind. I could sense that the others were almost here, and that included my dad and... Raditz. Somehow, dad had already managed to convince Kami to bring Raditz back with him, Shay's wish making it so that they'd get there at the exact time that the Saibamen died.

The Saibamen tried attacking us, rushing at us with impressive speed for a weed. Gohan seemed to be having trouble keeping up, but he wasn't going to hesitate as much as the original Gohan did, so I was sure that he'd be fine. Krillin, Piccolo and I exchanged punches with the Saibamen for a bit, but then I decided that I'd had enough waiting around. I used a bit of the fighting techniques that I'd trained hellishly in for almost a century to obtain to grab the Saibaman fist that was coming right at me, and used my other hand grabbed the Saibaman by the head. For a moment, he tried to open his head to spray acid on me, but it was too late for him. 

"HAA!!" I shouted as I used my ki to make the Saibaman's head explode like a watermelon. Meanwhile, another Saibaman was attaching Gohan. Gohan managed to block the attack, but it pushed him back.

"Gohan, believe in yourself! Fight with your instincts, not your eyes!" Piccolo told him as the Saibamen gave us a little breather following their comrades' death. Most of them were now looking at me with fear and hate in their eyes.

"Got it!" Gohan answered.

"Nice one, Hanna!" Krillin congratulated me on my killing of the first Saibaman. Vegeta clenched his jaw, clearly annoyed.

"How cute. You think you have a chance? It warms my heart to see such optimism." He said.

"Don't worry about those jerks, guys! They'll get what's coming to them soon enough!" Krillin said, confident that we now had an advantage over the little green monsters.

"Krillin!" You could hear Chiaotzu calling out as he and Tien landed. Our original conversation hadn't taken as long this time around, yet they'd still gotten here at around the same time as they had in the canon, huh? I spared a glance at my coat, but Shay didn't respond. She was still sulking about the fact that I was mad at her.

"Hey, you guys!" Krillin greeted them, smiling. The more the merrier, as they say.

"Hi, Krillin!"

"Thanks for dropping by! We could use the help..." 

Tien analyzed the situation, "Looks like these Saiyans brought some of their friends along for the ride..."

"No, they grew them here." I told him in Krillin's place.

"What?" Chiaotzu wondered, confused.

"Don't ask." Krillin told them. Explaining wouldn't matter anyways.

"That's okay. It doesn't really matter. It's nice to see you again, Hanna. And is that Goku's little boy as well?" Tien asked, greeting me.

"Uh-huh. His name is Gohan. Piccolo's been training him. Hanna's pretty strong, too."

"I know that much. They're bold, like their father. Speaking of which, I can sense Goku. He should be on his way soon." Tien told us. 

"I know. I can sense it, too. He's gotten a lot stronger." I told Tien. Honestly, I could sense them in Otherworld, I just never really tried to.

"Weird thing is, he's not alone." Krillin noticed.

"Enough of this garbage! Saibamen! Whoever's coming, I want them to find nothing but corpses and a scared green man." Nappa told his Saibamen, getting them excited. They started slowly advancing, mostly towards me, in excitement, but then we all heard a voice. 

"Wait for me!" Yamcha yelled, landing, putting in effort to look cool. He really didn't change, huh? "What's up? Sorry I'm late."

"Hey, Yamcha!" Krillin called out to him.