In Time for Tea

Dinner. It was what all true warriors strive for. Or at least according to a really strange series of videos based on a popular video game series about a dude that wielded a darkness sealing weapon of some description— by some accounts said weapon was bladed.

Nero knew the feeling of a hearty meal after a time of stress or hard work was hardly comparable to a lot of feelings. Maybe that was the Saiyan blood in him talking, or the Garouan blood, he wasn’t sure, it could possibly even be both since as far as he could tell his primal instincts weren’t pulling him in two different directions; and he was very much in-tune with himself as a whole.

Either way, while his mother Zukha was minding the children from Zhalla’s shelter, Nero had devised an epic plan of feast-ly proportions having sensed Zhalla was on her way back to Namek after seeing to Nasu’s warning— and the ambient energy of the universe hadn’t noticeably changed, so as far as Nero could guess, Plant had not been destroyed. Though, the fact that such a threat existed to begin with held certain implications. Nero decided that he would want to ask Nasu and Zhalla about the particular details some other time after they had a chance to wind down.

Soon enough, Zhalla had arrived on Namek. At first, it kind of sent Nero into a bit of a panic, but he noticed that she happened to be preoccupied by a few other encounters first. Okay, alright, that meant Nero was free to roast this giant one tonne chicken. Thankfully he had gotten permission to borrow a suitably giant oven from someone he knew for this exact purpose. After the chicken was cooked and the comically giant oven returned to its rightful owner, Nero let the chicken rest on the dining room table surrounded by all sorts of other foods.

As he finished up preparations, Zhalla finally arrived! Nero twirled on over to her, just wearing the lower half of his usual outfit with an old nearly completely worn out apron as well that had something written in Namekian on it. “Heyyy, Sunshine!” Nero happily greeted Zhalla, moving to plant a kiss on her forehead.

Nero snorted as Zhalla whacked her own chest out of nowhere. “Haha, relax, don’t choke on food you’re not even eating yet silly!” As far as the temperature was concerned, Nero thought it was just fine, quite normal actually. “Uh, nah, I cooked it outside with a giant oven.” Was he going to elaborate on that one? No. Not unless Zhalla chose to ask. He accepted her hug of course and gently held her tail with his own. “It’s good to have you home too.”

Holding onto her hand as she reached out for his, Nero would guide her into the dining room, which revealed the comically gigantic cooked chicken, the results of that previously mentioned giant oven. “Yeah. It was fun actually. Sure, I can’t beat what my mother does by any means, but I think I did pretty good.” He said, giving her a kiss on the forehead again. “Then what’s stopping you? You’re really goofy sometimes, you know?”

After having a good laugh to himself while Zhalla started to tear into the food only to abruptly turn around and give him a kiss, Nero once again, for the who-knows-what-th time said— “I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to.” It was something that Zhalla probably expected too, but she did always say he didn’t have to do various helpful or nice things. “You enjoy however much of that you like.” Odd that she downed juice immediately after a good bit of gravy and chicken. Sure, Zhalla might be a Saiyan but Saiyans knew how to savour tastes despite how much they ate or how often. Furthermore, since she kissed him on the lips moments after consuming food seemingly at random, so Nero could slightly taste it himself. It wasn’t even all that bad, as strange as the flavor profile might be on paper.

“Yeah, outside in a giant oven that I borrowed from a friend.” Nero repeated, as if that was normal, or at least not incredibly strange.“Pfft, that’s super easy. A grandma’s cooking.” Yes, this made perfect sense, they could be the mother of a mother after all, who better to learn from than that? Nero fully believed this, as goofy as it may sound— he was being genuine about it. Still, Zhalla was right, he was goofy.

“Tempted? Absolutely. Who wouldn’t be?” What Saiyan wouldn’t be, most of all? “Still, it would be rude. A meal shared is twice as good as a meal merely prepared!” Besides that, Nero was always the patient sort. “Go right ahead, I made it all for you to enjoy with me.”

It was obvious to Nero that Plant was still there, he figured it out quite quickly after the tension of the universe ceased, plus he knew both Nasu and Zhalla would have to be dead first before whatever they chose to defend was even touched at all. “Well... Yeah, you and Nasu are still alive first of all.”

Nero chose to have a bit of food himself, he took a polite amount of various sides— so polite it may as well have been portions for an Earthling. Was he not hungry—? Wait no, he just tore off one of the huge wings from the giant roast chicken and dropped it onto his plate. So that was what he saved all of that space on there for. Nero also noticed that Zhalla had gone silent. Even though she had survived and succeeded in helping defend the planet, it wasn’t hard to guess that something was still weighing on her. “D’you wanna talk about it? Just— after you’ve had a good bit to eat maybe?”

“Pbbt, yes if you want to get technical that’s true. Buuuuut they’re also a grandmother. That makes them stronger. By a hell of a lot.” He retorted, gently nudging Zhalla in the shoulder.

Zhalla’s amused smile got a snort of a laugh from Nero. “What? Did you expect a man with even a drop of Saiyan blood to not at least think about snacking on the meal they’re supposed to be making?” A greater Saiyan would see beyond the instant gratification though, and he was one such person— he meant it when he said a meal was better when shared.

Nero listened intently as Zhalla recalled what she had witnessed during the events of the battle. She had arrived to a pretty sorry sight. Nero groaned and took a deep breath, having heard that someone was being puppeted against their will. “When will it just fucking stop.” There was no way he wouldn’t be annoyed hearing this sort of thing after having dealt with it countless times by now. “Please tell me there weren’t more than that..?”

Maybe if Nero was there he could have done something about it, but he wasn’t. He was busy with events on Namek at the same time, and nothing could change that. “Hey. I’ve got you.” Nero levitated his plate in the air as he gently reached out for one of Zhalla’s free hands, noticing her struggle. She was being a lot more emotional about someone she didn’t seem to know. That was unusual for Zhalla, but perhaps she was being more so sympathetic towards Russ— he made the tough call, and it probably hurt him the worst of all. “He must be in a lot of pain. I should reach out to him sometime to see how he’s doing, he’s a good kid.”

Nero rolled his eyes, shocked that he was unsurprised with what Zhalla ended off on for the moment. The current leader of the Saiyans on Plant and the madman out to destroy it all had a bet going on over it? “Typical Vegetan shitshow—” Before he could launch into his grievances, Nero noticed the combinations that Zhalla was going with as she ate. It was weird. Really weird, even for a hungry Saiyan. “Am I seeing things or did you just wrap that potato in a lettuce leaf, drizzle gravy onto it and dunk it in chocolate pudding?”

“Yeah! Just imagine how freakishly strong mum could become.” Where Zhalla shuddered in fear at the thought, Nero was the opposite— he welcomed the prospect in fact.

Regarding the situation on Plant, Nero held his head in his hands while using telekinesis to hold his plate up in the air. Of course there was more shit going on, why did he even ask? Because he sure as hell wasn’t surprised. At this point, Nero was at his wit’s end when it came to things like this— all of these damned corruption curses, all of these mind control, rage inducing and selfish, violent manipulation abilities— he was well and truly over it. “You know what? I’m done being nice about it. My patience has worn so thin I can see through it. The next time some lunatic starts shit like that around me again, they’re truly gonna regret it.” Nero had no reason to stop training his abilities to begin with, but if others really wanted to mess around, he was going to mess them up in return. Actions had consequences.

“Hey, hey.” As frustrated as Nero was, there was something more important to attend to— Zhalla’s emotional state. “You’re not at fault here, you didn’t send Russ into a blind fury with some manipulation technique, you didn’t puppeteer that other girl around for your amusement. Some people are just awful sacks of shit that do those things, and that’s on them, not you” Still, having been part of the most recent conflict would have taken its toll of course, but she showed a lot more in her mood than she usually would have. Was it really that bad of a scenario, even outside of some maniac wanting to pop a planet like a balloon? “What’s up with Earth? What did you need to tell him?” If it was anything dangerous, Nero would have to tell Patrona too.

Even with all of the serious topics, Zhalla’s strange moment in combining a bunch of ridiculous food items truly stood out to Nero. “Uhhh. Was it any good?” Of course, a very Saiyan question. That said, now that he had the chance to think about it, Nero recalled several changes in how Zhalla had been acting as of late. Nero decided to focus his senses on her to see if he could figure things out— and he felt something, something incredibly faint yet oddly familiar, like Zhalla and himself, yet also unlike either of them at all. “Hang on a second... Could it be?”

Nero reached over to Zhalla and gently placed a hand on her face to try and get her attention once more. “Everyone that’s a good person always thinks they should have done more for others.” He was of course speaking from experience, and lots of it. Using his thumb, Nero tried to wipe away Zhalla’s tears before moving away since she wanted to use her arm instead. “Don’t sell yourself short, you prevented an entire planet from exploding.” He was firm in how he brought that up, obviously somewhat offended that it was partially downplayed.

Zhalla gave a few more details on what she wanted to eventually tell Russ. Unsurprisingly, it was more typical Vegetan bullshit. “Cool so I’m definitely going to warn more than just Russ and Patrona about that.” It was a wonder that nobody seemed to have come knocking on the door to give the Vegetans a rightfully earned kick in the ass. “Anyway if the Vegetans want to get clobbered, that’s on them. I can’t imagine you or even Kabe were convinced to help.”

Alright so the combination of food was pretty good— or at least not dreadful, Nero wouldn’t have gone for the gravy and lettuce but potato and chocolate didn’t sound bad at all. He shook his head quickly, why was he focusing on the food? It wasn’t that important compared to what he thought he could sense! Not even remotely close! “Oh, wait, you’re not that proficient at that kind of sensing, uhm.” Nero took a moment to think, but then he figured out how he could proceed. He reached out to Zhalla telepathically while focusing on what he felt, and holding a hand to her stomach. “Nothing’s wrong— not even close.”

“Yeah I know, it’s always a pretty hard juggle when you’re dealing with nearly feral battle-hungry lunatics.” It made sense that Zhalla and Kabe seemed to dance around if they were in on it or not to Vocado— as with what Nero had just said, it was a pretty hard juggle. “To be fair, it’s probably smart of you two to have done it like that. The less attention we get on Namek the better. Anyway, yeah, I can’t say I’ve heard good things about the current leadership situation of Earth as far as the presidency goes but Patrona, Russ and Jackie don’t deserve to cop shit because of that Derry fellow.” Did Derry even deserve a beating of that scale himself? Nero couldn’t say for certain, but he still didn’t agree with the man’s political actions— and something about those Accords that people were talking about seemed mighty suspicious.

“Pfft, settle down, settle down. Just give me a second.” Nero refocused on the feeling once more, trying to see if Zhalla could pick up on it properly with his help. Eventually, it seemed as though she did end up understanding something was different. Nero chuckled and sat back, putting his arm over Zhalla’s shoulder. “I guess I can make dad jokes with a permit now, which is fun. Oh, plus mum is gonna be a grandma and thus unfathomably stronger than she is now.”