The sky fractures.
A ripple. A streak of flame. Something stumbles into Krypton's atmosphere — not gliding, not descending, but *fighting*. Its thrusters scream against gravity that grips like a drowning hand.
The ship slams into the landscape, dragged violently into the surface by the planet itself, not welcomed, but claimed. A shockwave bellows outward, the ground itself seeming to inhale and then settle with a patient, geological groan.
Someone watches from a rise in the nearby ridgelands. Cloaked in a thin obsidian tunic, unarmored, unbothered. His silver eyes follow the impact without flinching. No one else is near. No alarms. Krypton doesn't panic. It watches.
The vessel is half-buried, crushed on one side where it hit a crystal outcrop. Steam pours from its belly vents, hissing into the thick Kryptonian air. The crater pulses with residual heat.
Then movement.
A hatch is forced open. A figure crawls out barely. His hands shake violently as they grip the edge of the vessel.
He drags himself free, coughing, hard. Blood spatters the dust-black stone, bubbling in his throat. Every breath is a rebellion.
He tries to rise. He falls.
Gravity pins him down. With force.
His body, even with ki reinforcement, is bending under it. His joints tremble. Something inside his arm cracks, as he uses it to prop himself up.
"This… isn't a planet. It's a damn living fist."he groans through gritted teeth.
He looks around, not in awe, but in disbelief. The air feels like it wants him gone. His spine arches against the weight. His armor creaks from pressure it wasn't built to resist.
He grits his teeth and tries again.
One foot planted. His breath ragged. He lifts his torso upright — every muscle in his frame screaming.
"Still… standing." he groans triumphantly.
Then he sees him.
A man standing a few meters away. Calm. Not bracing. Not affected.
His silhouette is effortless, held like it belongs to the world around him. The planet may be punishing Tharn, but it accepts Kael.
Tharn stares. Disbelief cracks through the exhaustion.
"You… you're standing...?"
He doesn't answer. He just studies him. Not with disdain. Not even caution.
Just quiet observation.
"How… are you—" His legs buckle. He staggers. A short, broken breath. His body twists sharply as his knee gives out beneath him. "Bones… can't hold…" he says barely in a whisper
He collapses.
Face-down on Krypton's soil. The heat from the crash still radiates, but his breath is going shallow.
The Kryptonian steps forward. Still wordless.
He kneels beside the unconscious Saiyan. One hand out, brushing just above Tharn's back — not touching, just, feeling. A flicker of something strange is found in his expression.
Not fear. Not pity.
Curiosity.
He stands again, glancing at the stars, where the tear in the sky is still healing.
"He should be dead."
"But he isn't. Curious."
The sky returns to its slow burn. Krypton breathes again unchanged.
But something new has entered it. Something Foreign.
And it lived longer than it should have.
.
.
.
The Saiyan's eyelids twitch. His first breath is reflexive — panicked — but it doesn't hurt.
The pressure that had been collapsing his lungs, that had, threatened to crush his ribs with every inhale, is gone. Not fully — but redirected, balanced.
He opens his eyes.
Crystals curve above him, glowing softly, shifting with a rhythm he doesn't understand. They hum — not musically, but like distant thunder that hasn't decided whether it wants to arrive. Thin energy filaments twist in the air, tuning the gravity within the room like a symphony of weight and light.
He sits up slowly. Muscles sore. Bones intact. Somehow.
His boots scrape the smooth obsidian floor. He breathes in again — too deeply. Coughs once. Then steadies. Across the chamber, he sees the stranger, hands moving in precise patterns over a small crystalline console. He doesn't look up.
The silence is not tense. Just... total.
"So... not dead. Guess that's good." he says dryly
The Kryptonian doesn't answer immediately.
Instead, he finishes what he's doing. One final motion. The crystals behind the Saiyan adjust slightly; he feels it, a gentle shift in the air. Like the room just sighed. The pressure recalibrates around him, not light, but livable.
The stranger finally speaks. Calm. Even.
"You were unconscious for seven hours. Your blood oxygen levels were collapsing. Two fractures. Internal bruising. No permanent damage."
"Sounds like a party."
A pause.
"This place... What is it?"
The stranger stands. Walks closer, not hurried.
"Observatory. Atmospheric and stellar mapping. It also adjusts internal gravimetric layering. You're sitting in a pocket tuned for your skeletal density."
"So... you're saying this room is holding back the planet for me?"
"Yes." He says plainly
The Saiyan exhales. Slow. He looks down at his hands, clenched without thinking. The faint tremor in his fingers isn't fear. It's the memory of nearly disintegrating just by existing.
He looks back.
"What the hell is this world?"
His answer comes without pride. Only precision.
"Krypton."
"Alright, I meant the part where it tried to kill me."
A pause. Then, quieter:
"How are you standing in this without flinching?" He asks with an audible sigh
The Kryptonian studies him. Not with amusement. Just with a calm interest.
"Because I was born here."
The Saiyan laughs once, then winces.
"Remind me not to fight anyone born on this rock."
The Kryptonian says nothing.
But his eyes narrow slightly. Almost a smile. Almost a warning.
.
.
The Saiyan sits on a low platform, half reclined. His armor is gone, replaced by Kryptonian diagnostic weaves laced around his chest and limbs. Not binding. Measuring.The room is denser than before. Heavy. Testing him again.
He doesn't complain. He breathes shallowly, a slow rhythm keeping pain at bay. His skin is marked with yellowing bruises and faint ki-burns from internal reinforcement. He shouldn't be conscious.
Across the room, the kryptonian stands alone, arms folded, facing a wall of glowing crystal. Floating projections cycle slowly:
'A muscular system overlay.'
'Nervous system firing rates.'
'Skeletal architecture density: 3.8**
'Global atmospheric pressure compensation: FAILING \[RED]'
'Notes:' "Neural stress response consistent with primitive high-threat stimuli. Subject continues to stabilise despite environmental incompatibility." He speaks without turning.
"Your skeletal architecture measures at 3.8."
"That… supposed to impress you?"
He finally turns.
"No. It's supposed to explain why you're not dead. It doesn't."
He walks forward, deliberate but relaxed. Tharn watches him — eyes flicking, calculating.
"The universal average is 2.6. Kryptonian youth reach 17.0 by maturation. Adults sit between 18.2 and 19.6. This room is calibrated to 4.0."
"So I'm in a box you built for the weak."
"We built it for study. Not comfort, but in essence, yes.."
The Saiyan grins faintly, but winces from the motion.
A new holographic readout scrolls upward, 'neural system energy pattern variance'. A line of notes trails beside it.
"Subject displays complex bio-electrical augmentation. Pattern consistent with low-yield ki expression. Global system integrity retained. Neurological source unknown. Believed to be a localised adrenaline analogue."
"The phenomenon presents as a neurological feedback loop. Efficient. But crude. We've seen similar responses in pre-sentient predator species." An observer speaks softly from the shadows.
"Pre-sentient?" (He smirks.) "That's a new insult."
The kryptonian glances back at the observer, then returns to the Saiyan.
"We've had reference to this… 'ki'... in ancient xenobiology logs. Misclassified as an evolved adrenaline system — distributed through the nervous network instead of localized glands."
"So you call it a glitch in the wiring." Says the Saiyan.
"It has never been necessary to understand. On Krypton, it would never manifest. The body would collapse before expression." He pauses, stepping closer. "And yet… here you are."
A beat.
"Still here."
.
.
The Saiyan exhales slowly."Where I'm from, we don't get luxury time for observation. You learn to push past limits, or die wondering where they were."
The Kryptonian tilts his head slightly. Not in mockery. In study.
"Your species pushes with no understanding of what it becomes."
"And yours understands everything... until you choose not to look." The saiyan retorts, meeting the kryptonians gaze.
A flicker. Not anger — not even pride. Just collision.
The kryptonian steps back. The crystals shift again, narrowing the density field slightly. The saiyan stiffens his shoulder grinding subtly as the room presses down.
"We have not charted beyond our system in two thousand years. We had no need. The stars do not offer challenge. Only distraction."
"Sounds… peaceful."
"It is. Until someone like you falls through the sky."
Another display flashes:
'Cardiopulmonary strain rising.'
'Cerebral vessel stress markers increasing.'
The Kryptonian watches as the Saiyan steadies his breath again, slower this time. With grit, anchoring will.
"I want to know what you are."
"So do I."
The room holds its breath with them.
Outside, Krypton remains vast and still — a world where pressure is truth.
And the stranger inside continues to survive.
Just barely.
.
.
The room has gone quiet.
The diagnostic crystals have dimmed to a low ambient glow. The machinery no longer hums — only the faint, rhythmic chime of environmental stabilisers cycling in and out.
The Saiyan breathes evenly now. His body is broken in microfractures, but healing slowly. He sits upright, arms across his knees, spine slightly hunched forward like he's holding himself together from the inside.
The Kryptonian is seated across the room. Not in a posture of superiority — but still. Observing. Elbows on his knees, fingers laced in thought.
The Saiyan breaks the silence first. His voice is quieter now, not out of fatigue, but respect for the silence.
"You always watch this closely? Or am I just that weird?"
The Kryptonian doesn't look up right away. When he does, his gaze is soft—not warm, but grounded.
"You're not strange. You're… off-logic."
"Is that a compliment?"
The Krypyonian breathes once, slow and steady. Then speaks again, deliberately.
"When I was a child, I fell from a cliff during field training. My instructor assumed I would adapt mid-fall, as Kryptonian reflexes emerge under environmental threat."
"And did you?"
"I didn't. I panicked. Hit a rock shelf twelve meters down. Broke my shoulder. I was ten cycles old."
"Ouch."
The Kryptonian nods slightly.
"I remember lying there. Not in pain. Not afraid. Just… ashamed. Not because I failed. But because I wasn't what I was supposed to be."
"You ever tell anyone that?"
The Kryptonian's lips twitch faintly. Almost a smile. Almost not.
"No."
A long pause.
"And then you arrived. Your biology isn't suited to this world. Your form lacks the mass, the density, the internal balance. But you stood. You spoke. You made light of it."
"I nearly died trying."
"But you did it."
He leans forward slightly.
"Everything I was taught says you shouldn't exist here. And I can't explain why that unsettles me."
"Because if I can stand here… maybe there's more out there you haven't looked at in a long time."
The Kryptonian looks away for a moment.
"We stopped looking outward. We had no reason to. We had… control."
"And now you're wondering if control was the same thing as fear."
He doesn't answer. But he doesn't deny it either.
The silence settles again — but this time, it's shared. Not oppressive. Not empty.
Two men. One of Krypton. One from beyond. Both caught in a moment of quiet honesty that neither of them meant to fall into.
"It strikes me that I've yet to ask for a name. Mine is Kael from the house of Taxr. Apologies for the late introduction." Kael says, reaching his hand to the Saiyan.
"Tharn, my name is Tharn, a Saiyan from the planet Vegeta." He extends his own, and they shake each other's hands in a moment of quiet recognition.