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// Chapter 4: Return 
// Story: Bardock Lives 
// by The Grimm Reaper 
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	Celestia watched as the alien stood before her and her closest friends and sister. He seemed confident in her eyes and with crossed arms, he showed it. She wondered what was playing through his head at that moment, what his plan was. Surrounded by guards, not to mention the Elements of Harmony and the Princesses themselves, he should have had next to no chance, but he was still confident. Granted, he didn’t know the extent of Equestria’s might, but numbers alone should have overwhelmed him, and with the wounds he’d mysteriously sustained… he was planning something.
“Welcome back.” Celestia said, building up a façade of fearlessness that mirrored his own. The alien registered her welcome and nodded.
“Let’s get one thing straight; I’m not here because I prefer you weaklings over the wildlife in that forrest. Actually they put up a better fight, so did the dragons.” Bardock wiped his chin free of any dirt that may have gathered with his thumb and it made every pony there gasp. They figured out he’d fought against at least one dragon and defeated it.
“Then why are you here? You wasted such effort to get away from us before. What made you come back?” Luna asked.
Bardock shrugged. “Who knows?” the answer didn’t settle well with either princess, but Twilight kept searching for something. She’d unconsciously begun leaning closer toward him in order to get a closer look at the creature that had so easily bested the royal guard and even killed one.
Bardock noticed the purple mare’s curiosity and met her eyes with his own. She seemed to freeze under his gaze. “Perhaps it’s this one here. The first amongst you to actually face me. And maybe it’s that blue one with the wings over there. The only one that seems to share my competitiveness. Suppose I’m curious about these two. What would you do?”
Celestia and Luna looked at each other with puzzled conflict. While Twilight and Rainbow Dash would both undoubtedly try and learn from this creature and impart what they knew themselves, the ever-present danger of his sheer strength remained and doing so would endanger the two mares. Celestia was not about to let her favourite student endanger herself to such a degree. Nightmare Moon, Discord, King Sombra, all the enemies she had faced so far were known to Celestia and she knew Twilight and her friends could handle them, but this creature, completely strange and different in every way was an unknown variable.
“Would you be willing to sign a contract of peace between our two species? We’d rather not go to war.” Celestia interjected.
Bardock chuckled at the prospect, finding an ironic sense of amusement. Given the strength of these beings, it would have hardly been a war, also as far as he knew, he was the last of his kind, save his son Kakarot, but there was no way to reach him.
“Sure, why not? So long as that peace treaty wouldn’t include the other species on the planet. As a warrior, I’d rather not give up fighting, else I might just break that treaty in order to have a good war.” he smirked at the white mare who seemed less that amused at his condition for peace.
“Very well. I’ll have the contract drawn up later today… in the meantime…” Celestia looked to Twilight and Rainbow Dash. “The two ponies you seem to take interest in will… show you around Canterlot and introduce you to its populace.” Bardock huffed and turned to leave when he heard the voice of the purple ‘pony’.
“Wait, we made you some peace offerings.” she called. Though Bardock wasn’t one for gift giving or even receiving them, he was curious as to what they could possibly make with stubby hooves. He stopped walking away, guard-free since the mention of peace between species calmed them down. He turned to her and raised a brow.
“Really? This should be interesting.” he said. He then noticed a white mare with a curly purple mane carrying a table on wheels. It had a drape over it and Bardock could tell something was under it. Genuinely interested, he waited for the white mare to unveil their work. When she did. Bardock was shocked to say the least. Though he hid his surprise, he could hardly believe all his old clothes were resting on the trolley before him.
“You fixed these? I’d have thought it impossible.” he said. lifting the main article, his Elite Battle armour. The thigh guards rested at either side of the chest piece.
“Not fixed, Replicated. Rarity here managed to copy the material of what remained of your armour and construct a whole new set. The design itself was improvised. Though you mistook it for the original thing, so she must have hit the nail on the head with its design.” The purple mare replied, walking up beside him. Bardock placed the armour back down and picked up the headband.
“I suppose you copied this too?” he asked. The mare shook her head.
“Actually, I added to that one. There wasn’t much of it left so I just restored it. It was a very interesting shade of red actually.” Rarity chimed in. Bardock huffed with what appeared to be amusement.
“It used to be white.” He then proceeded to tie the headband around his head and adjusted it to his liking. He looked up and ahead of him, his face seeming more serious than before.
“I remember taking this off my friend after he died.” he said, removing his tank top. He tightened his tail around his waist and proceeded to don the armour. When he was comfortable with the fit, he unravelled his tail and wrapped it around the armour as well. He then pulled his boots on and proceeded with the weighted wrist and ankle pads.
“I’m particularly proud of the weighted clothes. They were even more difficult to create than your armour, for some reason. You may have noticed, but I doubled the weight on each pad without adding size to them.” Rarity commented, gushing as she saw her work combined together on him. Bardock lifted one arm and clenched his fist.
“Yeah, I can definitely feel it. I’m just glad you didn’t decide to put weight into my headband.” he said. Rarity giggled and covered her mouth with her hoof.
“No, there would have been a reason that garment wasn’t weighted. But I must ask. Would you consent to allowing me to make armour like yours for the Royal Guard here? It would boost my business higher than anypony else’s. I just thought I should ask your permission.” the mare asked. Bardock ignored the reason as to why she wanted the design and shrugged.
“I guess. It’s not as if I own the rights to the armour. My people did deal with the creators of it, so unless you’re planning on asking a completely different species from my own, it’s all yours.” he replied. Rarity seemed to squee on the inside as she fainted and fell back into Applejack’s hooves.
“There she goes again. Really chafes my hide when she does this.” she muttered, dragging the pony away.
Rainbow Dash took the opportunity to challenge Bardock.
“Alright pink skin, think you can beat me in a race with those weights slowing you down?” Bardock looked at the rainbow maned Pegasus and smirked at her.
“Maybe you’ll have a chance this time.” he retorted. Twilight cleared her throat and caught the attention of both parties.
“Rainbow Dash! Now is not the time. There’s so much we need to learn about this creature. Like his name and what he is.” she interjected.
“Well aren’t you a buzzkill?” Bardock asked, eliciting a hysterical laugh from the one known as Rainbow Dash. Twilight exchanged a dark stare at the Saiyan and proceeded as though he’d said nothing.
“This laughing stock behind me is Rainbow Dash.” Twilight began. Rainbow Dash stopped laughing and addressed the purple mare.
“Hey!” she argued.
“And My name is Twilight Sparkle. She’s a Pegasus and I’m a Unicorn. What’s your name and what are you?” she asked, pointing a hoof to Bardock.
“My name’s Bardock… and I’m a Saiyan.” he replied. Rainbow Dash scrunched her nose.
“Bardock? That’s a weird name.” she said. Bardock huffed.
“Oh, and Rainbow Dash doesn’t make you sound like a raging dyke?”
“Hey!”
“And no offense, Twilight, but your name sounds like the title to a bad series of stories.” Twilight pursed her lips at the comment.
“Hah, shouldn’t surprise her. She’s a Librarian and she reads all sorts of bad books.” Dash said.
“And unless you want the latest issue of ‘Daring Do’, keep talking, Rainbow.” The cyan Pegasus shut up immediately. Bardock huffed once more and proceeded to walk out the doorway, leaving the ever silent princesses to their uncertainties.

“So, Bardock, what’s a Saiyan exactly?” Twilight asked, trotting alongside the tall man. Bardock scratched the back of his head.
“We’re a warrior race who value strength over anything else. We worked as planet traders. Saiyans like me were sent to other worlds, where we would reduce the surface to slag and then sell it.” Twilight shied away at the prospect, but picked up on something she felt was important.
“I noticed you said that you worked as planet traders, as opposed to still working as such. What happened?” she asked.
“Who knows. I’m here now, not there.” he replied. Twilight could tell he was avoiding the subject to a degree, but given the fresh nature of the relationship between himself and Equestria, she was not about to press him for information. Rainbow Dash however, did not see things so clearly.
“So what brought you here?” she asked. Bardock stopped walking and turned to her. He had a somewhat pained expression planted on his face.
“I’m not the kind of guy to really care about why things happen or how they happen. I just make things happen, specifically; I fight.” he then turned back around and took to the skies, leaving a cloud of dust behind.
Twilight and Rainbow Dash coughed amongst each other and looked at the fading figure.
“I guess the tour’s over.” said Twilight.