Post by Captain Kabe on Nov 10, 2022 15:28:41 GMT -5
Namek.
Beautiful. Big... blue? What more could you say about it? Kabe had never found much interest in the planet before, sans a few small raids and his trip in search of Nyaku some months prior. If he had a choice in the matter he would have avoided this boring heap of mud, frogs and sparse ajisan treelines altogether.
He'd come for something that went beyond his own sensibilities, though. His son. Or clone? Whatever. Kay Bee had been off the rails for some time before disappearing, and Kabe had scraped every inch of Plant in order to figure out where he'd gone. Surprisingly, it turned out he'd cornered a space-bus driver, demanded to speak to a pancake(?) and hightailed it to Namek.
So now Kabe was hear too. He had no idea where to start looking. His scouter was useful, but Bee's relatively low power masked it compared to some of the more voracious life forms across the planet's wild expanse. "Oh Bee," he grumbled, walking the streets of Dend Capital. "what am I going to do with you?"
It was probably a bad idea given his wanted status and high profile, but Kabe had no better thought than to start putting up missing posters of Bee on every post he could think of. Below the heading HAVE YOU SEEN THIS KID? was a dumb picture of Bee clearly choking on a bar of solid gold, and some text about the different names he responded to followed by a scouter number to call.
He hoped that somebody would be able to find him soon.
Nero was pretty much free today to do whatever he chose to do. He had already handled a lot of supply deliveries and various other jobs earlier, a lot of things had become increasingly easier to do quickly and with solid quality effort since he had become far stronger than he had ever been. So, since he wasn’t doing much right now, Nero decided to visit Dend Capital to see if anything new or interesting was happening.
Funnily enough, there was indeed something interesting happening. It didn’t take long for Nero to overhear a bunch of chatter. There was another Saiyan around at the moment, and by the sounds of things it was one he had met before— Kabe, or at least someone that matched his description. How many other people looked like that guy anyway? Nero doubted that there were many.
Wandering around Dend Capital, Nero found a batch of posters haphazardly stuck up all over the place. Nero raised an eyebrow and chose to investigate. It was... Something. Was it a joke? Some kind of weird prank? Nero investigated the posters thoroughly, but he wasn’t entirely sure on what the hell was going on here. So, Nero decided to instead (politely) telepathically contact Kabe directly to see if he had any idea. ’Hey Kabe? It’s Nero. I’ve uh. Found… Something odd? I think it’s best if I show you, actually.’ Nero telepathically sent Kabe the visuals of the poster he had picked up. ’Do you know anything about this? Cuz it kinda looks like a parody wanted poster of you. I know for a fact that you don’t have compound eyes or extra arms.’
Post by Captain Kabe on Nov 16, 2022 0:06:12 GMT -5
It was a sudden and strange sensation, someone probing forward and sending a message straight into your mind. Even when Bee did it through his and Kabe's intrinsic link, it sent a terrible shiver running down the back of his spine, from the stem of his brain to the bone of his tail. The voice was familiar, and not too distant.
"Nero?" Kabe thought back, hoping that was how this link worked, and watching his his vision was occluded by the transposed image of the very same wanted posters he'd been stamping across the city for the better part of the day. Right as Nero's sentence ended, Kabe bombarded him with a burst of sudden, and serious energy.
"Have you seen him?" There was no joking remark about the compound eyes, or the base absurdity of the boy's visuals and the situation they were in. Kabe dropped the stacks, and began to walk, aimlessly and unsure of where he were going, as if he was trying to track Nero down. It took him a moment to click his scouter.
"Please keep an eye out for him. He's been acting strange, and I'm really worried." It was uncharacteristic for Kabe to sound so genuinely caring about another person. He was oft the one to resort to snark, and childish insults and jesting instead of admitting his feelings. He was sure Nero had seen that, in their previous meeting. He didn't care right now, if it affected his reputation. He needed help, and if he'd read Nero's vibe right, being genuine was the way to get that from him.
’Yeah, it’s me.’ Nero blinked in confusion. Kabe didn’t explain much, in a weird way he completely avoided answering what Nero was asking. That said, Nero didn’t see it as impolite given Kabe’s odd mannerisms at the present moment. Kabe’s responses to Nero’s telepathy showed him that the Saiyan rapscallion was stressed out, worried. Though Nero didn’t know him super well, was very unlike Kabe to not carry himself with some sort of jovial wit, so clearly something was not right here.
All of these context clues given within mere milliseconds through thought meant this Kabe-like individual was in fact not Kabe at all, but someone else entirely. It was confirmed once Kabe spoke of this other individual as someone in third person. ’Er, no I haven’t seen anyone like this.’ Aside from Ollo, but Ollo was more man-boy than bug-boy, and also very un-Kabe like. ’I’ll keep an eye out all the same, but who even is it? Extended family member? They look a lot like you, you know.’ Nero understood the sense of urgency, but operating on minimal information or assumptions (regardless of how right they could be) wouldn’t be of any help.
Still, Nero conjured a myriad of his duplicates and sent them all over the place to see if any of them could spot whoever Kabe was looking for while Nero himself made his way towards Kabe, he could sense the guy nearby now. It didn’t take long for the two to run into each other. “Hey! I’m over here!” Nero waved to Kabe, making his presence known. “Run everything by me, what’s the situation?”
Post by Captain Kabe on Dec 5, 2022 2:08:02 GMT -5
Kabe wasn't quite sure how to answer Nero's question. 'Uh, family sounds right. It's complicated.' He had been calling Bee his kid, but was that what he was? It still felt weird to him to call a mutated clone of himself his 'son'. The train of thought was a long one, but it was luckily interrupted by Nero having made his way to find Kabe in person.
"Oh, hey!" Kabe waved, throwing up his feigned usual mask, desperate to act like things were find and dandy at present. Nero asked for a rundown on what's been happening, and Kabe paused for a moment. "Well," he began, thinking hard about hot much he should be letting on. He could tell that Zhalla, in whatever way they'd met, seemed to trust or care about this guy. She'd asked Kabe to keep an eye out for his kid brother, an avali he couldn't quite remember the name of. Maybe he'd understand then, if he'd been in a similar spot.
"I'm not really sure where to begin. The kid in the poster, well he sort of is me? But he isn't? I think my shitty dad cloned him in a lab. We found it under the old Bonewood estate a few days back. I've been looking after him, because he's about about as smart I was at that age, and to be frank I was practically a wild animal back then. Besides, just because my dad's an asshole doesn't mean this kid should be alone."
Kabe looked sad for a moment, before straightening himself out to continue. "Anyway, he's always been a bit of a brat, but it's gotten a lot worse recently. There was a scuffle on plant over some destron, and I ended up in a fist fight with Dion- you know him, right? Gladiator's brother. Anyway, I blacked out and when I came too, Dion was locked up in the brig and Bee's been acting weird ever since. Normally he's hungry, but I've never seen him violent like that. Dion had something going on with him too."
Kabe finally took a breath. "Look, long story short he's been acting very weird. After a fight with some saiyan named Cato, he disappeared. I tracked him to some space bus convoy he hijacked, headed to Namek. Said he was going to see a pancake, or something. Do you know what that means? Please tell me it's a place or something easy I can find."
Complicated family matters? Well, Nero knew a thing or two about that kind of thing! ’Haha, say no more if you’re not sure. Point is they’re important to you.’ In truth the real thing behind the situation was very much Weird, capital W, but it wasn’t like Nero would judge Kabe for anything about it.
It wasn’t the guy’s fault anyway.
Having finally run into Kabe, he once again put up some bravado. Saiyans, right? Either way, Nero knew the truth behind it, Kabe was stressed. Nero sighed, listening to Kabe’s explanation. It was a lot. Nero pinched the bridge of his nose. “Kai-damn Callion. Of course.” He said, exhaling sharply. It was good of Kabe to take the little man-buglet into his care. If Zhalla and Kabe weren’t locked in some sort of eternal whack rivalry, that was probably one thing that the two would get along famously over; they cared a great deal for youths and wanted them to have the best chances they could get. “You did the right thing. You’re already so far beyond your pitiful excuse for a dad, take pride in that.” Nero nodded, giving Kabe a smile.
Plant, as expected, was quite the shitshow still. Nero really had to wonder when it would end and level out into something less bonkers. There was something else to this though, Dion had shown up in that battle. “Dion? Really? Did you two end up fighting or something? I know he’s off somewhere else now, but that’s kinda weird of him...” Strange, definitely something to ask Kabe about, but later. “Wait, nevermind that for a sec, we’re looking for the kid.”
Kabe was at quite a loss, but he had, coincidentally, come to the right place and had run into the right guy. Or, one of the right guys. Nero figured it out in seconds, and knew precisely what Bee was referring to. “Pankaa. Not a place, or a thing, my brother. My bet is they’re possibly friends. Pankaa scurried off to Plant a bit ago himself, they probably met there.” It also kind of explained several other things. Why Pankaa had a hard time with talking about Dion, that strange guilty vibe he gave off. Nero had his theories, maybe some of that stupid curse latched onto Dion when Pankaa least expected, then from Dion it latched onto Bee.
In that case, Nero had more work to do, he promised to erase that blight and undo its curse, so that was what he was going to do. “We need to find Bee, and quickly.” Nero telepathically pinged his duplicates to see if they had seen anything. Since they covered a lot of ground, he hoped there would at least be something to go off of.
Post by Captain Kabe on Dec 11, 2022 16:33:32 GMT -5
Kabe allowed himself to find some amount of comfort, however small, in Nero's encouraging words. He could agree that he had done better than his own father, but with a bar that low he wasn't sure how much pride he should take in meeting that metric alone. Before he could think on that too long, Nero had asked another question.
"Yeah, we fought. He came to back up Amara in her effort to cleanse the city of destron, we tried to stop her since she basically showed up out of nowhere threatening lethal force on objectors with the backing of a foreign government." Kabe knew that didn't quite capture the whole truth of the situation, but that was how he chose to remember that shitshow of an engagement.
There was a moment of relief and confusion when Nero spoke the name. Pankaa. He'd heard that before- Zhalla had asked him to keep an eye, ear and whatever else out for a pint-sized Avali kid of the same name for Nero. How had they met on Plant? It must have been before Kabe and Bee had managed to catch up with eachother. But the relief was quickly cancelled as Nero spoke with urgency, stilled to a calm but concerned voice. "Why, is something wrong? Your brother's not gonna eat him or anything right?"
Unsurprisingly, the drama on planet Plant saw little chance in simmering down or stopping. Now, Nero had a lot of thoughts on those matters, but Plant wasn’t a place he wanted to necessarily think too much on. “Ooookaaayyy...” Nero began, wincing somewhat, this was a complex situation. “Clearing out that foul smog is a good thing, so I don’t see why anyone would want to stop that. Objectively, it is the correct action, seems simple enough to me.” Nero scratched the back of his neck as he tried to make sense of what Kabe was telling him. “So, I don’t understand how it all went to shit. I hope it gets done properly somehow.”
In any case, they weren’t here to discuss the political breakdowns of others, Nero saw finding Kay-Bee as vastly more important. “If I’m right, something could be very wrong.” Nero scoffed when Kabe asked if Pankaa was going to eat Kay-Bee. “No, no, that isn’t his thing.” Pankaa ate specially made deep frozen bars of soap, not friends! “See— to sum it up, some stuck up egomaniacal hag cursed Pankaa, and he started acting up, unlike himself. Then, maybe, that curse latched partially onto Dion, which might be where Kay-Bee got it from in your fight. Did he try take a bite out of Dion or something?” Nero sighed. “Well, good news is, I can erase the curse. We just need to find him, ‘n if Dion’s got the same or similar thing going on, I’ll need to track his dopey ass down too.”
Post by Captain Kabe on Jan 21, 2023 6:42:08 GMT -5
Kabe shrugged at Nero's commentary on the whole destron crag situation. He couldn't disagree with him, and a little part of him had wanted to wince at the whole situation to begin with. One thing Kabe hated more than anything was governments fucking over their people and land, which destron was probably the greatest modern example of. "I agree with that. Wasn't really a personal tussle for me. My uncle called me for help and I picked a side, whoever was correct or in the right didn't matter much to me at the time. Maybe someone will get it cleaned up someday. Probably a tuffle, though I reckon there's gotta be some old codger prattling about who won't take that lying down." A hypothetical, of course. Drawn from thin air to fill silence.
Quickly though, Nero drew the focus back to what was important. Finding Kay Bee. And the circumstances that had changed him, and brought this whole finding-your-kid-on-another-planet situation upon them. "I wasn't around to see, since Dion knocked me out. But knowing me, and I guess a half-cloned version of me... probably. The whole gulletspace devourer thing urges you into it."
Kabe's face lit up at Nero proclaiming he had a solution. "Oh, awesome! How do you do it? Is this like a binding circle situation, or like a potion, or?" As he asked, he clicked his scouter and sent a text to Nyaku to alert the crew.
KB still on the loose. Solution found. Just need to catch the little bugger. Keep looking.
With the message sent, he ended his line of questioning. "We'll have to find him the old fashioned way, I think. Something about whatever's happening and how much mystical juju this planet has is making it impossible for my scouter to get a lock on him, and my Kanassan sensor has no idea about it either. So unless you've got some trick up your sleeve, we best start asking around."
“It is what it is.” Nero shrugged, he knew Kabe wasn’t one to often concern himself with some correctness unless it personally involved him. If there was one thing Kabe himself valued above all else it was family. The one he chose, and the one he had. His crew and friends, and blood relations. For all of his capriciousness and flaws, and as much as he annoyed Zhalla, Kabe wasn’t the worst fella out there— not by a long shot. “D’you really think someone will actually rock up to clear it out though? Don’t get me wrong, I’m hopeful— maybe Amara might try her hand at it again— but uhhhh... Last I checked, nobody else out there seemed to really give a shit?” Oh well, it wasn’t what the two were here to figure out anyway.
With the focus back on Kay-Bee, Kabe was curious for answers. His assessment on what Kay-Bee would do had merit, and Nero decided to give insight as to why. “Well, first of all the affliction latches onto the worst parts of yourself and heightens them. You’re still… You-ish, just not you as you should be. You’re not the true you with that kind of curse.”
To be rid of the curse, it wasn’t a binding circle or a potion, and Nero shook his head slightly. “It’s a bit more direct than that.” Nero held up a hand and that raw purifying energy began to swirl around it, it came from him and from beyond him in a spiritual sense. “It’s me, basically. But, a binding circle or potion could be helpful as additional tools. Wouldn’t hurt, I’ve used them in conjunction with this power before.” Nero explained, dispelling the energy.
Tracking Kay-Bee seemed to be presenting Kabe with a variable amount of difficulties. Scouters couldn’t lock on, and one of his crewmates had trouble reaching out with extrasensory abilities. “Has the kid exhibited any capability to fully hide his energy? If yes, then it could prove difficult. If no then it significantly narrows down where he could be.” Nero smirked. “I’ve got the homeworld advantage, after all. I know far more about Namek than most do too.” Plus, he could cover a lot of ground with his magical duplicates!
Post by Captain Kabe on Mar 19, 2023 20:51:33 GMT -5
Kabe watched as Nero's energy swirled around his hand, fascinated by the power that radiated from him. It was clear that Nero was more than just a simple fighter or warrior, he was something else entirely. Zhalla clearly kept good company. "Wow, that's... impressive," Kabe said, a rare mixture of awe and respect hinted in his voice. "I had no idea you had that kind of power in you."
As Nero spoke about using additional tools to help rid Kay-Bee of his affliction, Kabe nodded in agreement. "Right, right. That makes sense. We should use everything at our disposal to help him, especially if it means getting him back to his old self." He paused for a moment, pressing his thumb to his chin and thinking hard about what little he knew about Namek and it's mystics. "Maybe we could get in touch with some of the older Namekians? They might know something about this kind of affliction, they could give us some insight in how best to cure it."
At Nero's question about Kay-Bee's energy, Kabe shook his head. "No, I don't think he's capable of hiding his energy completely. But something about the curse, and the energy here is making it hard for our scouters and sensors to get a lock on him." He frowned, deep in thought, and his mind once again lingered on the population of Namek; spurred by Nero's comment of the homeworld advantage. "Maybe we could ask some of the locals? They might have seen him or know something about where he's hiding."
Kabe's scouter beeped, and he glanced down to see a message from Nyaku. "Looks like Nyaku's on the case," he said, closing the confirmation message and turning back to Nero with a determined look on his face. "Let's get to work then. We've got a kid to find and a curse to break."
“Hah! Yeah, says the guy with a Stomach of Holding.” Nero snickered, but he understood what Kabe was saying here. “Sometimes we even surprise ourselves with what we can accomplish when we need to— I certainly surprised myself, at least.”
Nero nodded, it made sense to use whatever resources were available, and he was glad that Kabe would essentially spare no expense, not that it was a matter of money or funds here. Whatever they needed, Nero probably already had on hand or could easily obtain. Hell, maybe some of those things were in Kabe’s Gulletspace! “Yeah, I know a few elders that would be incredibly helpful in this regard.” Even if some of them were busy, Nero was sure they would do whatever they could to help.
Getting some sort of insight regarding Kay-Bee’s energy control was a good thing, if he couldn’t completely hide, then it would be more like Nero said just before— the places that Kay-Bee could hide would be significantly reduced. “Odds are he is hiding in a few select locations— namely ones that house cursed artefacts to dilute the feel of his energy, thus making him hard to find. There are also a few places that don’t quite match up dimensionally, so while he may more or less be on Namek, he simultaneously wouldn’t be.”
Having some more help from Kabe’s crew was also good, and Nero gave a nod. “Yeah, I’ll ask some folks ahead of time and send my duplications to check around the general perimeter of some locations of interest, we can ask around out here for the time being before we get a lead. Sound good?”
Post by Captain Kabe on Apr 15, 2023 2:52:08 GMT -5
Kabe felt himself relax a notch down from the level of sustained panic he'd been operating on for the entirety of time that Kay Bee had been missing, as it seemed that Nero was ready, willing, and knew what he needed to do in order to help. Kabe laughed at the commment about his stomach, smiled at Nero's words of wisdom about surprising one's self, and grinned as Nero said he knew the perfect people for the job. "Perfect!" he yelled, a few of the Namekians in the village around them creening their necks around to gawk at the shouting.
Kabe took it down a notch with his vocals, as well, abd kustebed as Nero used his local expertise on Namek to posit some places where Bee might be hiding, taking in the information about the cursed artifacts and the dimensional inconsistencies. Kabe had always been fascinated by the intricacies of the universe, and had a very personal and obvious fascination with the wobbly space-time crap that caused dimensions to twist and link, like his stomach. He made a mental note to ask Nero more about it later, but for now, they had work to do, and he only had a single question. "So these places... are they dangerous? We're not going to get there and find he's been double cursed, are we?"
Kabe nodded at Nero's plan, knowing his crew were already keeping their high-tech, mechanical ears and eyes peeled for any sign of Bee. Nero's copies, however they worked, would ask around elsewhere... and he and Kabe would investigate the area around them while the others looked for leads. Part of him felt like it wasn't enough, but the realist in him said that no matter how much he yearned for it, he couldn't be everywhere at once. "Sounds like a plan," he said, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. It felt good to have a direction to move in, even if it was just a general one. Kay-Bee had been missing for too long, and Kabe was getting anxious to find him.
He coughed up a small printer, and linked it to his scouter to print out two high-definition missing posters, one of which he handed to Nero. With it in hand, he approached a cluster of Namekians holding it up. "Have you seen this boy?"
Nero was glad to help Kabe relax even at least a little bit. A certain level of urgency and stress was sensible but a clearer head would be helpful in solving the problem at hand. In fact, if Kabe was somehow completely relaxed then Nero would be worried.
Putting focus on the recon squad of his own creation, he surveyed areas beyond the capital with ease, though still seeing little in terms of signs that Kay-Bee had been there. There were other places that fit the criteria of being hard to sense through or around even further out, so the duplicates would eventually go onward to those. “Ah, in this sense I use ‘curse’ to denote an environmental abnormality to what is normal. I should have been clear about that, sorry.” He responded to Kabe’s worried inquiry. There were far more dangerous locations for the kid to be anyway and they had no sensory blocker to speak of.
Kabe eventually spat up a portable printer. At this point... Nero wasn’t even surprised anymore. He took the printed poster that was offered and approached a different group of people. “Have you seen this kid? Or can you relay the question to anyone you know?” The group Nero spoke to didn’t quite recognize Kay-Bee, but remembered hearing someone mention such a description and chose to telepathically contact them. It would take a bit to get any information but it wasn’t a dead end.
As for those that Kabe spoke to, they had a similar response, though one of the Namekians personally mentioned that they believe they saw a strange small scraggly thing of similar visual description eating fence posts like they were crunchy slices of apple and drinking a whole pond in under a second.
Post by Captain Kabe on Jan 29, 2024 16:14:04 GMT -5
"A... whole pond?" Kabe asked, confused for a second as he listened to the Namekian told the story of the fencepost-gobbling lake-gulper, before he nodded with a small smile. "That sounds like my boy. Thank you." Kabe said, with a little chuckle as he walked from the Namekians to another group. He got a few similar stories; a giant space cockroach ate one Namekian's couch, another said they saw something change from a boy to a bug to a dinosaur before it was spotted and disappeared into the night.
Kabe walked back to Nero once he'd gathered what information he could. The smile was shaken off his face with those steps as he returned to being fraught with worry. "Looks like there has definitely been some sightings around, but no dice." Nothing he'd heard had given him any good indication of which of those many cursed places Nero had mentioned Kay-Bee might have scuttled off to. "Did you find anything?" Kabe asked, running a hand through his taut, spiked hair.
"Fuck, what if we don't find him..." he murmured, fending off the urge to bite off and swallow his fingers, settling instead for chewing on his nails in nervousness like a sane person.