Chapter 233: The Big Gete Star
The bright spots in the sky rapidly multiplied.
At first, they resembled distant stars caught in the midday atmosphere — faint, almost dismissible. But within seconds, those points of light swelled into unmistakable shapes, descending with chanical precision through the clouds.
Spaceships. Dozens of them.
Lin Chen imdiately stood up, his expression sharpening. His ki spiked as his senses reached outward, probing the fleet that continued pouring through the stratosphere like a slow-moving avalanche.
The energy signatures were wrong.
They were cold, synthetic — nothing like the organic battle-ki of a Saiyan or even the malevolent heat of a tyrant like Frieza. This was sothing fabricated. Industrial.
He'd felt sothing like this once before, when Dr. Gero's creations had made themselves known during the rebellion. But these signatures were different even from the tal Saiban. More concentrated. More nurous.
Sothing is very wrong.
"Everyone, get the children inside — now!" Lin Chen called out without turning around.
Hanasia had already moved. She crossed the pavilion in two strides and swept Lin Luo and Taro into her arms, her eyes fixed on the darkening sky above. Tights was right behind her, one hand reaching back to grab Gohan by the wrist.
"Co on," she said firmly.
For once, Gohan didn't protest. He shot a single glance toward his father and jogged after Tights without complaint, his child's instincts reading the tension in every adult's posture.
Bulma clutched Trunks tighter against her chest, pressing the infant's face gently into her shoulder. The baby made a small sound, squirming. She whispered sothing to him that no one else could hear, already moving toward the pavilion's interior.
On the other side of the clearing, Goku had gone completely still.
It was unusual for Kakarot to go quiet, Lin Chen knew. The man practically vibrated with energy during normal monts, always fidgeting, always glancing toward the horizon for the next challenge. But when a real threat presented itself, sothing changed in him. The looseness drained away. What remained was sothing sharp and utterly calm.
Goku's eyes tracked the fleet with quiet concentration. "There are a lot of them," he said simply.
"Too many." Vegeta had landed beside him, arms crossed, golden ki already flickering at his knuckles like a candle catching wind. "Their energy is artificial. Whatever is piloting those ships isn't alive."
Lin Chen had already reached the sa conclusion. He turned toward the sky and raised his power, letting his ki bleed outward into the atmosphere. Across the capital, he knew the effect would be imdiate — every Saiyan warrior on Planet Vegeta would feel it, a silent signal older than language.
Prepare yourselves.
Within monts, figures rose across the city skyline. Tarble and the Super Saiyan Gods materialized at Lin Chen's side in a matter of seconds, their transformations blooming in the air like golden fires being lit one after another. Lazuli descended from the direction of the training facilities, her eyes already cold and analytical, scanning the approaching fleet with the detached precision of soone cataloguing threats.
"I'm reading approximately one hundred and twelve distinct units," she said, settling beside Lin Chen. "Homogeneous. Sa energy output across every single vessel."
"They're copies," Lin Chen said quietly.
The realization surfaced from sowhere deep in his mory — a Dragon Ball film he had watched in a life now separated from him by an uncrossable gulf. Cooler, consud by the Big Gete Star after being defeated by Goku. The planet-sized chanical collective that had rebuilt him as its core intelligence, then mass-produced his body as weapons.
He had assud this encounter was still years away, if it would happen at all. The tiline of his world had diverged enough from the original that he had stopped making confident predictions.
Apparently the Big Gete Star had other ideas.
"Tarble." Lin Chen's voice carried that particular weight the others had co to recognize — the king's tone, not the friend's. "You and the others form a periter. Nothing reaches the ground."
"Understood, Your Majesty." Tarble's expression was steady. Despite being the older prince, there was no rivalry in how he followed Lin Chen's lead. He had grown into that deference cleanly, without bitterness — and Lin Chen respected him for it more than he had ever said aloud.
The four Super Saiyan Gods rose in unison, spreading outward across the sky to establish a barrier line.
Beside Lin Chen, Goku rolled his shoulders once and settled into a loose stance. "So — what are we dealing with?"
"You'll see soon enough, Kakarot," Vegeta said, his gold aura igniting fully. "Don't embarrass yourself."
Goku grinned despite himself. "You too, Vegeta."
The first wave of ships broke atmosphere.
From their holds descended figures — tall, armored, moving with synchronized precision that no flesh-and-blood soldier could maintain. Each one was unmistakably built from Cooler's template: the sa angular silhouette, the sa cranial protrusions, the sa aura of cold chanical nace. But where Cooler himself had been singular, proud, driven by ego — these were interchangeable. Dozens and dozens of identical faces staring down from the sky.
tal Coolers.
The power level of the nearest one settled into Lin Chen's perception. Thirty-two million. Significant, but manageable for the warriors present.
He exhaled slowly.
Manageable — as long as nothing unexpected happened.
"Power Level thirty-two million each," he announced for the benefit of the others. "Stay in formation. Do not let them split the group."
One of the tal Coolers descended ahead of the rest, stopping at a distance that was technically outside of imdiate striking range but close enough to make the statent clear. It regarded Lin Chen without blinking — without any of the tells of organic thought. No contempt in the eyes. No satisfaction. Just processing.
When it spoke, it was with Cooler's voice — cold, aristocratic, and wrong in the way that a recording is wrong. Too perfect. Too empty.
"Planet Vegeta. Registered as a hostile territory by the Big Gete Star. Resistance is unnecessary and will be archived as data."
"Data," Vegeta repeated with magnificent contempt. "You're a copy wearing a dead man's face and you want to talk to us about data."
Lin Chen placed a hand briefly on Vegeta's shoulder — not restraining, just grounding. Vegeta's jaw tightened, but he held position.
"I have one question," Lin Chen said to the tal Cooler. "Is there anything left of the original Cooler inside the Big Gete Star?"
The tal Cooler processed for exactly two seconds.
"Cooler-unit was integrated. The self is archived. The Star persists."
Lin Chen nodded once, slowly.
He felt sothing that wasn't quite sadness — more like a grim recognition. Whatever Cooler had been, whatever potential future had existed in that proud, ruthless mind, it was gone. What remained was a weapon wearing his geotry.
"Then there's nothing to negotiate," Lin Chen said quietly. He let his power rise. The air around him shifted — not with the brute heat of a regular ki surge, but with the temporal weight of sothing deeper. Ti itself seed to thicken slightly around his body. "Everyone. Intercept."
The sky above Planet Vegeta beca a battlefield.
From the ground below — from the safety of the building where Hanasia had brought the children — Taro pressed his small face against the window glass. The sky was alive with explosions of color. Gold and white and green. The booming of energy discharges rolled across the landscape like continuous thunder.
Lin Luo appeared at his side, silent for once, watching with wide eyes.
"Dad's out there," Lin Luo said.
Taro nodded.
After a long mont, he said, "He'll win."
Lin Luo looked at him. There was no uncertainty in Taro's expression, only a child's absolute, unquestioning certainty — the kind that ca not from analysis but from sothing felt in the bones.
Lin Luo turned back to the window.
"Yeah," he agreed. "He will."
Behind them, Gohan sat on the floor with his knees drawn up, watching the sky with a quieter kind of focus. He wasn't frightened, exactly. He had grown up beside Piccolo; he understood the difference between a battle that could be lost and a battle that had already been decided, even before the outco was known.
This felt like the latter.
He closed his eyes and listened to the distant thunder and waited.
Above the planet, the battle was only beginning.
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