ELEVEN

Thermo flies through the chilled skies towards the mountain top where the snow began to fall.

THERMO

"It's going to be difficult finding anything in this white powder. Unlike Plutos and Hypo, I can't pick up on energy as well as we were taught to…"

In the distant past on Supreme Kai's planet…

Thermo, Hypo, Plutos, and three other red arcosians, sat in a line meditating as the supreme kai, Talafan, paised circles behind them.

SK TALAFAN

"... Karci. Calabri. You may stop now."

Two of the red arcosians sigh in relief and open their eyes. The smaller one, Calabri, clad half in metal like a cyborg, stretched his body out and flopped on the ground with a groan of annoyance. The lanky one, Karci, stretched his arms out and slouched forward as he watched Calabri flop.

CALABRI

"Finally. My joints are nearly rusted from sitting there for so long."

SK TALAFAN

"You can see now though, can't you?"

CALABRI

"Of course. Though I would rather use my scout, but it's broken, no thanks to someone. Karco."

Calabri glares at the largest red Arcosian, Karco, who sat next to Hypo. Karco cringes hearing his name being called and peaks over at Calabri to counter his glare.

SK TALAFAN

"Now, now. Calm down you two. Hypo, Plutos. You may stop now."

PLUTOS

"Hah~. Thank the heavens. It's over."

HYPO

"Was it really that bad to you? I think being able to see the powers of others without the need of wasting effort on actually looking."

PLUTOS

"Well I'd be damned if Mercurium learned to do this."

HYPO

"Urgh. don't get me started. I don't even want to imagine how frightening that would be."

Supreme Kai Talafan looks at Thermo and watches his concentration stay steady. He hadn't moved since they started. He couldn't get a hold of anyone's chi but his power still continued to grow within him without anyone else noticing. He wasn't doing it on purpose either.

KARCO

"I got it! I can feel a planet 1600 mets from here!"

SK TALAFAN

"That took long enough. You can stop now."

KARCO

"Yes! I'm going to get some food. Man that takes a lot out of you."

CALABRI

"We wouldn't need to go through this if the word patience was in your dictionary."

KARCO

"Haah? You wanna go, tiny?"

CALABRI

"Like you could stand a chance against me, child."

KARCI

"... I'll be inside the temple with the angels."

KARCO

"Ah! Karci! Wait for me! Big brother!"

Calabri and Karco follow Karci to the temple, leaving Hypo, Plutos, and Thermo with Talafan.

HYPO

"Hmph. What a rowdy trio."

PLUTOS

"I'll head in too, since there's nothing more to do today."

SK TALAFAN

"Not quite. You two need to keep working on your reading. I know you've been slacking on it. Especially you, Plutos."

PLUTOS

"Geh! Uurrr…."

HYPO

"Yes, sire."

Hypo and Plutos fly off to the temple. Thermo was the only one left to meditate in the open field with Supreme Kai Talafan watching over him.

SK TALAFAN

"... even with all that noise, he hasn't flinched once. I hope I don't have to see the day when his tolerance has reached its peak."

Talafan continues to pace around Hypo patiently. Hypo finally reached a peak in his power and made a breakthrough. Talafan sees this and was about to tell him to stop until he saw Thermo's eyes open on their own. His eyes were glowing gold and white.

THERMO

"... tsh."

Thermo closes his eyes again and returns to meditating.

SK TALAFAN

"... seems he hasn't reached his goal yet. I will leave him be."

Talafan disappears and leaves Thermo completely alone.

In Thermo's mind, he sees the galaxy around him but not much life. All he could see were stars surrounding the planets. He didn't understand what he was seeing until one of the stars moved. He decided to look closer into the planet and the stars grew apart and became less clustered than he noticed before. The one that got his attention was following a set path until it stopped and fell apart. His attention follows the smallest one with the brightest light as it takes shape into a child and starts dimming out as other buried figures rush to it. He looks to the other lights that were separated and watches as the one is taken away and another fades into nothing. The brightest one flashes and sends the dim lights flying back into another cluster with only one of the dim lights standing and approaching the bright light slowly. Then the bright light dimmed down but it didn't go out. It only flickered as the other dim lights carried the now flickering light away.

Thermo just realized that he watched a strange story unfold in his mind. He could tell that whatever happened on that planet was not natural. He became curious of this planet, of that light in particular. So he chose to continue watching it for a while.

Back to present, as Thermo continued to fly through the skies this time distracted by his thoughts.

THERMO

"... unlike the others, I can't make out figures clearly. I have to rely on the size of the star I see if I find them. Let's see…"

Thermo stops flying for a moment and closes his eyes. He could see the galaxy he was in. His view falls to the planet and then to the north peak he was heading to. He could see at least twelve lights in the mountain. All bright and lively. All under the mountain it seemed.

THERMO

"How odd. There must be a cavern or something beneath. Also they never said anything about this namek having company. Has he been spreading offspring while secluded here? … The largest star must be him. It exceeds even the elders from the village. Though…"

Thermo sees another star near the brightest one. It wasn't as bright but was a bit dark in color to him and quite large in comparison. As if it were a demon. It reminded him of his father's hellish energy that he felt when he first mastered the sensory technique taught to him by the supreme kai. It made him disgusted, but it wasn't as large as his father so it simply made him uncomfortable to look at.

THERMO

"... That… is going to be quite the annoyance. Sigh… If I destroy the mountain, I won't be able to get any good information with everyone dead. What a hassle."

Thermo flies down to a casm that cuts into the mountain side and follows it to the stars under the mountain.

Elsewhere…

Miu sat in the police station with Matsuda and Alto. Alto was still struggling with his test while Miu and Matsuda used their devices for amusement until he was done. Officer Flute stood in a report discussing the few cases the station had until his phone rang again. He answers it and heads outside.

OFFICER FLUTE

"Hello?"

"It's me."

OFFICER FLUTE

"... Bonga? What's going on? Did something happen?"

BONGA

"Don't worry everythings fine, but we don't need to worry about that tower anymore for now."

OFFICER FLUTE

"Huh???"

After a short story…

OFFICER FLUTE

"For the heavens. Are you sure they can help? Do you really trust this person?"

BONGA

"For now, so long as we satisfy his taste, it shouldn't be a problem. He was more than willing to help us find that one as well. Also…"

OFFICER FLUTE

"Hm?"

BONGA

"He seems to know something about that stone that one gave us. Or at least knows of someone that can understand them."

OFFICER FLUTE

"Well just be careful. I got one of those here, too. And he's not as nice as who you're dealing with. I need to be extra cautious to keep Alto safe."

BONGA

"What?? What happened to Alto? He didn't start anything again did he?"

OFFICER FLUTE

"I think the boy almost lost his life picking a fight with someone he shouldn't have."

BONGA

"Oh, for the heavens. I hope he's doing well. We can't have the next head getting into any more trouble just because he wants to fight strong people."

OFFICER FLUTE

"I doubt he'll be reasonable enough to not challenge the guy again. If nothing else, I pray that Arcosian stays easy on him from now on. Maybe I could ask him to train Alto."

BONGA

"That would be ideal."

OFFICER FLUTE

"Yeah. alright thanks for the update on the village. Let me know how it goes."

Officer flute hangs up and gets ready to head back inside when his phone rings again and startles him.

OFFICER FLUTE

"Hello?"

OFFICER KOSUKE

"FLUTE GET THE KIDS AND GET DOWN HERE NOW!! I don't have time to explain, but you need to get here now!" *click*

OFFICER FLUTE

"... What???"

At the head district in central Mozu near the destroyed Mozu tower.

Officer Kosuke looks at his phone in worry, then looks at Plutos who was standing in the center of the main lobby surrounded by police officers.