An Important Sort of Meeting

"Do you think maybe she's-" Alpinia started to suggest until, suddenly, both doors of the throne room burst open, as did a highly agitated Amara. The married couple stared at her in silence with slightly widened eyes as she noticed them, with Alpinia slowly offering her a small wave, until she grabbed the both of them and pulled them with her into the throne room, slamming the doors to the large, ornate hallway shut behind all three of them.

"I uh, like what you've done with the place," Taori stated as he got a look around. There was a set of tables and chairs in the corner that looked a bit out of place, and looked to have been where Amara was doing paperwork. That was one aspect of the job Taori absolutely did not miss doing, even if Alpinia was savvy enough at her job that she was capable of handling the lion's share of it. Amara herself slumped over to one of said chairs, commenting on how she wasn't sure if Taori and Alpinia were even real or just a side effect of Amara's medicine and fatigue. "Nope," Taori confirmed, "We're real."

"And it's great to see you again, too!" Alpinia chimed in. "We were both pretty worried how you'd be faring, and, well, you look tired, sure, but you're still in one piece, right?" Alpinia approached the table and leafed through some of the paperwork, frowning. "Do you not have anyone to help you out with these?"

Taori, on the other hand, added, "Uh, look, Amara, I'm sure we have a lot of explaining to do for where we've been the last... Six months or so. I promise there's a good explanation, though."

"Oh dear," Alpinia stated with worry as Amara regaled the two of them with some of her trials and tribulations over the last while. Almost getting stabbed with a sword by a maniac, and how she was essentially still fresh on the job and had barely even had time to hire anyone, let alone deal with the mountain of paperwork that needed attending to. "Are you sure you're alright? We can allow you some time to rest if you need it." Alpinia glanced back at Taori and stated, "I'm sure Taori and I can fill out these forms for you if you want to get some shuteye for a bit. You'd just need to add your own signature later on, is all."

Taori, on the other hand, did not look particularly enthused by this idea, though he imagined he would look like just about Plant's biggest douchebag if he protested here, so he forced a terribly sheepish smile, his brows furrowed. "Y-Yeah, if you, uh, need to rest, just, um, let us handle all this... Paperwork." He briefly considered if it really would've been so bad for them to have just stayed trapped on Vetch's planet.

"Though, um, before you go," he continued, stepping forward, "We were on our way back from Konats, when our ship hit some sort of cosmic interference whatever thing. I completely lost control of it and we crashed on... Well, a really weird planet."

Alpinia nodded. "Yeah, there was this ancient Saiyan bound by these mystical chains on it, and we weren't able to get any sort of SOS message out because of the planet's 'mystical energy,' or however the guy put it. We were only saved because that Arcosian Mint happened to find the planet on his radar."

"Yeah, I'm probably going to be tipping our ship repair guys more generously from now on," Taori replied with a small chuckle. He's always considered himself fairly tech savvy, for the most part, since he knew how to use a scouter and fly a ship, but when that ship actually broke down? He was just hopeless. Alpinia wasn't all that much better at fixing things, though, which did make Taori feel a little bit better about his skillset. ...Although, if she had been better, they probably wouldn't have been stranded for so long.

"Mhm, he was actually fairly sweet," Alpinia replied when Amara inquired about this forced roommate of theirs. "I don't know why those ancient Saiyans bound him up like that. It was funny getting to see him react to everything that had changed about Saiyan culture. And interesting to learn about ancient Saiyan culture!" Alpinia was pretty sure some of the stuff Vetch knew hadn't even made it into the history books. Ancient Saiyans were quite a bit more about fighting wars, and not so much about thorough record keeping.

"And Mint is... Well, he's Mint," Taori chimed back in. "I'm just glad he didn't seem to hold a grudge about me killing Azoth. He actually seemed grateful that I'd opened up the power vacuum for him to seize." Arcosians sure were power hungry, huh? Saiyans may have been power hungry themselves, but that was mostly due to their thirst and love for combat. Arcosians, though? They seemed to only want that power to lord it over others and hoard it to themselves. Taori couldn't say he respected that mindset.

"Oh, so," Alpinia took back over, "We heard there was some crazy stuff that happened at Hatchi. There wasn't... Actually a Super Saiyan there, was there?"

"Nan... ite?" Taori replied, puzzled. Alpinia, though, was more than happy to accept Amara's generous offer.

"Ooh, that'd be great! Thanks a bunch, Amara. While the vacation wasn't wholly unwelcome, I really don't want to get stranded like that again anytime soon. Or ever, really." They were just lucky Amara had been around to take the mantle back up. If some other power hungry Saiyan had seized control in their absence, they could've returned to a war torn, devastated Plant instead of a relatively peaceful, if slightly uneasy one.

"And yeah, Azoth was... Something," Taori agreed as Amara expressed her distaste for the Arcosian. "At least he's gone, now. He can't hurt anyone else with his manipulations." Even Taori had been foolish enough to trust that the Arcosian was actually one of the good ones. And then he murdered K414 behind Taori's back while simultaneously sending one of his generals to lay siege to an unguarded and vulnerable Sadala. He deserved every bit of what came for him.

Amara then very casually dropped that not one but two Super Saiyans had arisen in the battle over Hatchi. "Two?!" Taori exclaimed in surprise. "Well, I mean-" he seemed a bit at a loss for words, frankly. A part of him hadn't quite believed the rumors until hearing it confirmed by a trusted source. After a moment, he was finally able to continue, "Lottus I'd heard about, but, who was the second? And are they both still out there? Aren't Super Saiyans supposed to be indescribably powerful?"

Well, as long as there were no new wars brewing, Taori would take that as a win. Arcose was an incredibly powerful opponent, and while Taori had no love for the Arcosian Empire, he hardly wanted to take it on at this point. There had been plans brewing for a counteroffensive against them for daring to attack Sadala while the Kingdom's back was turned, but with Azoth's death and a new monarchy that seemed more content to leave the Kingdom on its own, there wouldn't be much point in that anymore. All they'd be doing is adding more bodies to the pile that Azoth had started.

And as for those infamous Super Saiyans... "Nasu? I think... I've heard of him," Taori replied. "Wasn't he Rosemary's lapdog back when she was in charge?" He hadn't met the Saiyan, but he sure hoped Nasu had healed his mind since back then. Rosemary had done something to him that had him basically entirely under her will, from what he could remember hearing. And, as far as anyone knew, Rosemary was still out there somewhere. Could she still have been pulling Nasu's strings?

"He's what?" Alpinia replied with a rather flabbergasted expression as Amara stated her... Relationship with Nasu. 

"That's... Cheri, right?" Taori asked. He hadn't known about Garrick's relationship with the Tuffle until shortly before the war came to an end, and he was still befuddled by it, but he supposed it explained some of Garrick's actions during the war, in retrospect. But there were more important things going on at the moment than who Amara's mother was sleeping with.

"Two million..." Alpinia echoed in awe. She turned to Taori and asked, "Your Oozaru is about four hundred thousand, right? They must be way stronger than Oozaru."

Taori just frowned and rolled his eyes. "Well, uh, who knows, if two of them cropped up at once, maybe I can become a Super Saiyan, too." Doubtful, but he could dream. "I'm surprised you were able to get the chance to execute Lottus, though. I imagine you couldn't have done that without Nasu's help." From the sound of it, as things currently were, only a Super Saiyan really stood much of a chance against a Super Saiyan.

"Uh, right," Taori slowly replied to Amara's explanation of... Whatever it was that Rosemary and Nasu had going on. "Demonic spirit possession. I should've known."

It was good to hear that, through it all, Nasu actually ended up being a good person, though. Who knows, maybe if things had gone a little differently, they'd have been having this meeting with King Nasu instead? Taori supposed he probably wouldn't have had any real issues with that, so long as he was actually as generally altruistic as the picture Amara was painting of him seemed to be. 

Amara then explained that, had her genetics decided to treat her appearance differently, she might not have ended up being raised on the Saiyan side of things. "Well, we still would've loved you, anyway!" Alpinia insisted as she gave Amara a big old hug. "Pink hair, blue hair, who cares about all that? You're still my sweet little cousin." Speaking of cousins, Alpinia had to wonder how Delia was doing. Last she'd seen that one, she had taken off to Earth to start her 'pop idol career.' Whatever that meant.

As Alpinia pulled back away from Amara, the Queen procured a screen displaying the final moments of Lottus' life. The golden aura he possessed was certainly distinct, and it seemed to add up to the way the legends described the Super Saiyan form. "That's kind of incredible..." Taori commented as he gazed into the screen. "To think that it'd end up resurfacing in our lifetimes after being absent from the galaxy for thousands of years." And Amara had a point - no one was invincible. "I'm sure you're right," Taori replied, "But with how many more casualties? All in all, we should just be thankful Nasu somehow realized the legend at the same exact moment."