Tater didn't bother using the front door. The two missiles that'd slammed into the side of his mansion made a pair of holes that were more than large enough for a full-grown Saiyan to jump through. Tater used the hole in his bedroom wall. Unprompted, Kakarot followed shortly after.
Tater registered the younger Saiyan following him, but said nothing. The boy wasn't Cynder. Kakarot wasn't a child. Even against weirdo villains with abilities that transcended the inevitable power gap, the younger Saiyan could take care of himself.
The assailants hadn't bothered with subtlety. One was on the front lawn, casually hopping off of a giant log that'd been embedded into the grass at high speed. Tater instinctively ignored him, because he looked composed, strong and trained to a nearly inhuman level that was utterly inconsequential to the Saiyans.
The other assailant was the one that sent shivers up Tater's spine.
This man's face, even though Tater hadn't seen it in years, still showed up in his nightmares every once in a while, that same ugly, depraved expression plastered across it. His blonde hair was shaggier than before, and scars criss-crossed all over his shirtless torso.
Blue. The sick bastard that'd chased Tater and Cynthia across the globe for years, coming back stronger and stronger every single time he was knocked down.
Even though he knew that these two had some sort of backer, the person who'd actually shot the missiles at his house, Tater didn't bother looking for it. Whoever it was, he couldn't sense them, which meant that they were either long-gone or far-away. He'd interrogate the guy with the shirt that said 'Kill You' later.
"How'd you survive, Blue? I saw you get crushed. Thought the Earth had become just a bit better of a place. Guess I was wrong."
Blue laughed, "Oh, love, you'd never get rid of me that easily."
"I'm not your love, creepy bastard." Tater shot back, considering making the transformation into his SSJP form preemptively.
"Oh, don't say that, love. It was only the thought of holding you in my arms once more that kept me going." A chill went down Tater's spine, his body instinctively transforming into its SSJP form without conscious command, as he realized that something about Blue… was different. Even creepier somehow, if that was at all possible.
Even though his strength had blasted up a whole dimension or so, Tater felt even more unsafe than before in front of this crazy bastard. Kakarot felt the same. Something was just… off about this guy. Even without Tater's long history with him, Blue set off an alarm deep in the depths of Kakarot's Saiyan instincts. It didn't tell him that he couldn't defeat him… but something a bit more complex. Like… getting near this person was just wrong.
The two Saiyans stood there as Blue recounted his struggle to survive with a terrifying, zealous look in his eyes.
Apparently, he'd spent months surviving only on mental power, clawing his way ot of a suffocating, sunless void with his bare hands as his single-minded focus on seeing Tater once more replaced his need for food, water, and air.
After that, he'd been in a coma for over a year. The recruitment offer for this particular attack had come in the middle of his rehabilitation.
He told the whole story proudly, beginning to end, before the man beside him finally cut in. "If you're not going to shut up, I'm going to complete the contract. You can have the big one. Keep him off of me and I'll do my job."
"Shut up, Tao. I don't care. All I want is my Tater."
"Creepy ba-" Tater moved for a punch. Zero windup, zero warning, swift as lightning, his fist pushed forward, wreathed in energy so dense that one could see it on the visible spectrum.
It was an attack meant to end the fight before it'd ever begun.
By erasing Blue down to the last atom without hesitation or remorse. This creepy bastard didn't get Tater's mercy. He remembered way too many times he'd been paused in place by the bastard's powerful telekinetic abilities, driven entirely by an obsession that'd slowly grown to match his previous power levels in intensity, despite Blue's weak body.
Back then, only Cynthia's quick thinking, breaking the blonde man's concentration, had saved Tater from a future as the creepy blonde man's personal statue.
But, no matter how fast Tater moved, how much force was behind his punch…
Blue's obsession stopped him in his tracks.
The ki dispersed as the large SSJP's movements stopped as if time had been frozen.
After that, multiple things happened at once.
"DADDY!" Cynder's body flew out of one of the holes in the side of the mansion. Completely ignoring Tater's command to get Cynthia as far away from Blue as possible, the young half-Saiyan blasted toward Blue with the force of someone who knew exactly who their target was and wasn't about to second-guess their decision.
In other words, like a bull in a china shop. Unthinking, straightforward.
Mercenary Tao used the boy's sudden appearance in an exact opposite way. Between one instant and another, he disappeared and reappeared halfway across the battlefield, hand coming down in a precise karate chop aimed directly at Kakarot's seemingly exposed neck.
Two people raised their hands simultaneously.
And the entire feeling of the battlefield changed.