Bamboozled

The scenario at hand was a bit tense. A Saiyan named Pinachi from the Saiyan Kingdom had thought, for one reason or another, that he should test out just how strong he was. The delinquent picked out some random planet in some unnamed solar system and unleashed all his might onto it with a barrage of vicious ki attacks, destroying much of it, but not quite decimating the entire planet. As soon as this was discovered by the others in the Kingdom, the Saiyan in question was promptly apprehended and questioned for this heinous act, of course. His stated reasoning was slightly underwhelming, as he swore he “had no idea it was an inhabited world” and that he “was just trying to see if he was strong enough to destroy a planet”. Pinachi actually broke down crying quite pathetically and begged for forgiveness, but that hardly changed the gravity of what he’d done.  

The aliens that inhabited this nearly-ruined planet were a more unknown species by the name of Pandaroo that mostly kept to themselves. Or tried to, at least. The whole accidental massive assault that devastated their planet had them angry, as communities tend to get when they’re suddenly under a barrage of unprovoked attacks, and in order to avoid a full-blown conflict, the Saiyan Kingdom thought it would be a good idea to send in someone to sort things out and bring a resolution. 

Enter Nashua.

The young Saiyan had only recently been promoted to her new position as a diplomat, and she was eager to prove herself. “Are you sure you’re up for this?” her commander had asked when she volunteered herself for the mission. “You’re smart and all, but going to an uncharted and very angry planet filled to the brim with people who’d likely want to have your head-” “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” Nashua insisted with a calm smile on her face. “I’m sure they’ll understand as soon as I explain the situation to them and everything. And if things get too bad we’ll just figure it out from there.” 

With only her confidence to back her up, Nashua used her military-issued pod to fly solo to the unnamed and nearly ravaged planet, arriving after a long and eventful but calm and pleasant trip. The landing was a little bumpy, but nothing that Nashua couldn’t handle as she carefully crash- er, maneuvered herself into the middle of an open field near where she’d been instructed to meet with the primary leader of the planet. It was only once she stepped out of her space pod that she saw the huge crater in the ground her landing had caused, as well as the long line of torn up dirt and plants behind her that the pod had just slid across and destroyed as it had come to a stop. 

“I’m sure they won’t mind just a little bit of extra destruction,” Nashua thought as she glanced around the area. It seemed to be a very lush and forest-covered planet, though that was only in this area. From reports and the glimpses of it she’d seen on her way in, Nashua knew that many chunks of it were now charred wastelands, devoid of life and practically impossible to survive in with their sudden lack of resources and water. But enough about that, Nashua needed to speak with, er, whatever the name of who she was going to be speaking with was. 

The yellow-eyed young woman was worried that it’d be hard to find wherever she was supposed to be going, but her worries subsided rather quickly when, out of the thick wall of trees that surrounded the clearing she’d landed in, two furry figures emerged. They stood upright on two legs, had quite burly physiques, and looked a whole lot like panda bears. “Hey!” one of the black and white bears shouted at Nashua, and she abruptly turned over to face them and bowed her head. “Oh, you two must be from-” she started to say, but was quickly interrupted. “You got a lotta nerve coming around here, monkey-man!” the alien shouted at her through the snarl on his face. “Er, I’m sorry?” Nashua perplexedly responded. Did he just call her “monkey man”? She didn’t look that much like a man, did she?  

The panda men suddenly each whipped out a three-or-four-foot-long bamboo stalk from the belts they wore and spun them around all fancy-like before pointing them like swords at Nashua. The one on the left spoke, “Your people destroyed our planet and now you dare set foot on it and expect to speak with our leader? Your ignorance knows no bounds!” Oh boy. The two panda men both charged at Nashua at once and swung their bamboo swords at her viciously, and while she didn’t expect the stalks to actually hurt, given that they were basically flimsy green plants, as soon as one of the stalks made contact with her stomach, she felt herself being thrown back with immense force several meters and tumbled across the ground. 

“Ow!” she exclaimed, quickly getting to her feet with a newfound dislike of bamboo and the wind knocked out of her. “Okay,” she started to yell back after a moment of recuperation, “I’ll let you get that one, but I swear if you two panda bears try and whack me agai-” Before she could even finish her sentence, she was once again rushed at, though this time she was ready. As the first panda-man ran up to her and swung his bamboo sword, Nashua whipped out her trusty spear she kept attached to her belt and brought it up defensively, their weapons clashing and deflecting off of each other. The panda looked a bit taken aback by her sudden block, but quickly began attacking her again, this time swinging horizontally, though Nashua continued to easily deflect his strikes. 

“Would you just listen to me for a sec!?” she shouted as the panda slashed at her ruthlessly again, and again, each attack either swiftly avoided or blocked by the metal spear Nashua wielded. “I’m here to work out some sort of, uh, way to make things right with you guys, yeah?” The panda-man either didn’t hear her or didn’t care what she had to say as he continued his flurry of easy to avoid attacks, and Nashua was starting to get annoyed. She was nowhere near one of Vegeta’s best fighters, yet she was having no trouble at all with this guy. Were they really that weak? As she started to try and say something else, she remembered something. Weren’t there two of them? 

The moment Nashua realized her mistake, a massive blow struck the back of her head and she saw nothing but stars. She was pretty sure her legs collapsed or something, because the next thing she knew, Nashua was face-down in the grass with a couple of blades annoyingly sticking up her nostrils. She tried to get up, but suddenly she felt her body tense and fall into a tremendous amount of pain, as one of the two pandas she had failed to fight off grabbed her by her tail and began to drag her across the ground. 

“GEEEEEEEYAARGH!”

Nashua practically shrieked as the pain became more and more unbearable as the yanking continued. The pandas looked startled and immediately dropped her tail, relief flooding over the Saiyan as the pain withered away. Even just the several seconds of being grabbed was crippling to Nashua, and she practically whimpered, “Can you… drag me… by my legs?”  

The pandas exchanged confused glances, then proceeded to grab Nashua’s feet and instead drag her across the ground with them. Nashua realized she probably should have said arms, as now every single bump in the road knocked against her head and all she could do was let out a small groan every now and then. But anything was better than getting dragged by the tail. Quite literally anything. 

It didn’t take too long before Nashua was finally dragged all the way to the panda’s civilization, and glancing around, she saw pandas of all shapes and sizes, wearing various clothes and doing things you would see on just about any other planet. Some panda children were playing with a ball, a few adults were sitting around and talking, and many others were bustling about in the surprisingly busy streets of the town. Needless to say, Nashua looked quite out of place, having no fur and being dragged across the ground by her feet. She received her fair share of strange looks as they went further down the street, and all she could do was smile sheepishly at the pandas or wave at them. 

Before too long, they reached their destination. Nashua’s legs were dropped abruptly onto the ground, and her arms were grabbed and pulled up. “Inside,” one of the pandas said, “Our chief will no doubt have words for you.” Nervously, Nashua wandered ahead into the building, but not before realizing one of the pandas was holding her trusty spear. It wasn’t as if she could just ask for it back, though, so all the brown-haired woman could do was sigh and proceed inside the chief’s hut.  

A panda not too dissimilar from those she’d already seen was awaiting her, sitting behind a wooden desk with a pair of reading glasses balanced stop his snout and a very fancy looking hat atop his head. He glanced up at Nashua, and his brows furrowed. “So,” he began, in a calm but deep voice, “I take it you’re here about that monkey-brain who blew up half our planet.” Nashua very quickly replied, “Yes, I have been sent as an ambassador by the Saiyan Kingdom of Vegeta in order to negotiate a-” “Okay, okay,” she was interrupted by the chief, “I get it, I don’t need to hear your whole life story.” The Saiyan was a bit taken aback by his casual demeanor, and she simply replied, “Er, sorry. And we’re, uh, sorry, that Saiyan that attacked you was just being stupid. We’re actually quite adamantly against the destruction of other planets!” 

“Uh-huh,” the chief slowly said in response, “Well, that hardly changes what happened, intentions or not. I’ll have you know, your little incident wiped out more than 80% of our bamboo supply, and almost killed some people! We would never-” “Wait, wait,” Nashua cut him off. “Um, sorry, but, did you just say it only almost killed people? Like, nobody actually died?” The chief looked a tad annoyed with her interruption, but he nodded his head. “Yes,” he said, “Do you really think a pathetic monkey-man attack like that could actually kill a Pandaroos? We thought it was just a heat wave until plants suddenly started spontaneously combusting all over the place. A couple people’s fur caught fire, but it was nothing too devastating.”  

Well, that changed things. A small smirk spread across Nashua’s face as she pictured how embarrassed Pinachi would be when he found out just how weak his “planet buster attack” actually was. “So, the only actual issue here is that most of your bamboo was destroyed?” The chief, once again, nodded. “Yes, it’s our primary resource for quite a few things. Weapons, food, construction, art, the list goes on. Unless we can replace the supply your idiot friend ravaged, we’re going to have some serious problems with your kingdom.” A smile spread across Nashua’s face. “Oh, I think I know how to help.” 

***

“You promised them WHAT!?” Her superior exclaimed as Nashua informed him of the agreement she’d reached with the chief of the Pandaroos. “It’s not that bad, their population actually isn’t as big as you’d think. I just promised them a, uh, certain amount of bamboo be exported to their planet until they can regrow the stalks that were destroyed.” Her superior shook his head and sighed before crossing his arms and glaring down at the shorter Saiyan. “What makes you think we could possibly provide that much bamboo for them?” he demanded to know in an irritated voice. 

Nashua shrugged. “I mean, we have bamboo forests, and they’re not really used for anything, and we can always replant our own stalks too, so I don’t think it’d be that bad! They said they’re gonna be real mad if they don’t get their bamboo. They’re strong pandas, you know. Wouldn’t want ‘em as an enemy.” Her superior glared down at her in silence for a few moments, then uncrossed his arms. “Fine,” he replied. “But I hope you enjoy manual labor, because you and that idiot who caused all this are gonna be doing the chopping.”  

“Wait, what?” Nashua worriedly asked as her superior began to walk away. She quickly tried to follow him, but he seemed to think that their conversation was over. “You realize what a crazy amount of bamboo we have to cut still, right? That’s like, hundreds of stalks a week! For weeks!” He stopped and glanced back at her. “And the problem with that is…?” he asked, expectantly. Nashua had a feeling she should shut up now. The Saiyan sunk her shoulders and sighed. “I-I’ll get right on it, sir,” she mumbled back, and he continued on his way after giving her a grin.  

Nashua now didn’t care about her vow to resolve things peacefully. When she found Pinachi, she was going to kill him.