Fate

by Shane Hochkeppel, age 15

CHAPTER 1 (BEGINNINGS): King Mamba watches Nubius through his Scanner screen as his fleet approaches, attended closely by his serpentine army. The Nubians take notice as the ships enter the atmosphere; Gine emerges from her house with a concerned expression. Mamba’s vanguard flies out of the mothership in advance of its landing, and the fleet takes no care avoiding structures as the ships fly up to the king’s castle, and some structures are destroyed. King Derek’s advisor enters the throne room to inform him that King Mamba has come, but King Derek can see that for himself; the king seems displeased at this unexpected visit, and nervous. The vanguard lands at the spaceport, followed by the mothership. Mamba disembarks with his entourage, including his son Pythor. King Derek and his retinue go to meet them. Mamba greets King Derek, who offers his hand in welcome, but Mamba ignores it. He instead introduces the Nubians to Pythor, and after a brief hesitation, the king welcomes Pythor and kneels before him; the other Nubians follow suit. Pythor acknowledges their greeting. Mamba announces his retirement and the ascension of his young son, placing a fatherly hand on his shoulder, which Pythor clearly dislikes. Mamba explains that Nubians will serve Pythor as they have served him; the only thing that will change is that Pythor is more cruel than he. When Mamba is done speaking, Pythor flicks the hand off his shoulder and laughs, introducing himself with condescension. He announces that he has high expectations for the Nubians, causing the king to

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blanch.However, he has an inaugural gift for his new subjects, a number of devices called Scanners, which are a compact version of the Scan-Scopes the Nubians have used previously, and they can be worn as headgear. As Pythor demonstrates the ability of these new Scanners to detect life forms and assess battle power, he notices snipers aiming for him from the battlements of the castle.He remarks that one of them has a battle power of over 2000, and then he takes out all four mutineers before anyone knows what is going on. Pythor leaves them with 500 Scanners; the fleet departs, and King Derek is left crushing his Scanner in frustration.Five years later, Jules is returning from battle to Planet Vegeta. Pythor has ordered all the Nubians to return home. Vector wakes him from sleep to let him know they are about to arrive. Vector expresses his curiosity about Pythor’s order, and Jules tells him to take off his Scanner because someone might be listening. Pythor’s Spaceship is already in the planet’s orbit, but it will be some time before all the Nubians return to the planet. Jules is suspicious about this order; if Pythor wanted to send them an important message, he could have done it wirelessly. Even if he wanted to give them some kind of new measuring device, there would be no need to rush all the Nubians back to the home planet. Mamba and Pythor have always found the Nubians to be a useful tool, but Jules wonders whether Pythor has decided he doesn’t need them anymore. They enter the atmosphere with dozens of other ships and land in Jules’ Village and disembark. The village is bustling with activity, and carts pulling space pods are passing through. Vector wants to look on the bright side, but Jules thinks he is being foolish. Nova calls out to Jules, speculating that Pythor has identified a valuable planet that will require all the Saiyans

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