Premise: During Frieza's reign over Planet Vegeta, Bardock assembled a group of rebels to counter Frieza's regime in hopes of restoring the Saiyan rule. He sets out with a group of fifty men to pillage a fort belonging to Frieza.

Chapter 1:

"Please don't leave me!" the woman cried, repeatedly as she held on to the boy's arm. "Please! I'm begging you!"

"Mother, I have to!" the boy shouted back, tugging his arm free. "I'm sorry but they need me! Trust me! I'll be back!"

"No you won't! Don't go! Please! I'm begging you!"

The woman's grip broke...

"I'm sorry..." and the boy was gone.

"Father, I'm here," I heard a young voice cry. I turned around with a fury to see it was Kakkarot. Thick-headed little boy. He was a shadow in the distance

"What are you doing here?! I told you to go and stay with your mother!" The rampart before me exploded into a shower of hailing fire. Redness was my only background. "Go back! Go now! Watch over your mother!"

"I can't do that! You need me!" The blazes grew with obsession and reddened the black skies above.

"Here they come sir!" Tora shouted to me. I could hear the hesitation in his voice. It bit my ear.

I turned back to Kakkarot, grabbed him by his ruffled hair, and carried him over to a nearby hole in the center of the wreckage that lay about us.

"Stay here!" I didn't trust that stubborn boy. He was always trying to prove himself. Always trying to be just like daddy. Daddy ain't so great. He'll learn that soon enough.

I felt a hand grab my shoulder. A cold hand. It pulled me back, dragging me through the dirt. Some more grabbed onto me, my face, my neck, dragging me towards the citadel. Then just before one grabbed my eyes, I saw a hand reach into that hole in the center of this battlefield. And my teeth closed, tightly, fiercely, like an animal, upon a cold flesh. I tasted fresh blood.

Immediately the hands released their grips from my body. And the battled had begun. I drove my fist into the body of one of the men clad in armor. My fist dug deep into his inner recesses and blood splattered across the fiery ground.

A fist rammed into my face, turning my head slightly. I shrugged it off and grabbed that man's face, squeezing it, crushing it, savoring the sound of crunching bones. My grip tightened. My grin widened. And finally, my hand closed, with nothing in them but blood, flesh, and shattered bones.

Torrents of fire erupted all around me as a volley of energy balls was raining from within the citadel.

"Bardock!" One of the men shouted to me. I looked to him, then back to my son. He was standing there, huffing and puffing with a dead body by his leg. A dead body by his leg. Dammit, that kid had Saiyan blood running through his veins. He wanted to be just like daddy.

"Dad, I told you I could help," he said. I didn't say a word. I just stared into his eyes. I could see a soldier in there, a warrior. He looked just like me.

I knelt down by him and rubbed my hand through his hair. Behind me the sound of a battle of a thousand men rang out. I looked back to my son and whispered to him, "You'll get your time. Right now, the rebels don't need you. You're just getting in the way. Get out of here now or you'll just slow us down."

"But I can fight."

"Not well enough! Someday you'll be a great warrior, but for now you're only a distraction!" I gave him a shove. He was tough. He could take it. Sure enough he would grow up to be a true Saiyan. I just wanted more than anything, for him to live that long. "Get out!"

"Sir, an incoming ship!" Totappo cried out.

"Then let's go ahead and make it welcome. It'll fit right in." A grin spread across my face as the ship landed. "Go!" I roared, and like martyrs, we charged right at Doom, fiercely, foolishly.

The doors opened, smoke burst out, shading the terror that waits within. We all felt it, we all knew what was behind. But before we could get to our sense and stop like wise men could, a barrage of energy beams rained upon us.

Light flashed all about, and with each terrifying flash, a scream of agony cried out. Again. A flash. A cry. Again. A flash. A cry. It was raining blood, left and right, with the rising dust and debris trying its best to cover up the terror, the massacre.

Flash after flash, thunder after thunder, my men fell left and right. Over and over. Pain struck me suddenly. A flash. Pain. Another. A cry. Pain. Eruptions all about. A flash. Blackness.

My eyes squinted open, struggling, struggling to free themselves from Death's claws. Redness filled the sky above me. All around me lay decapitated bodies. Blood trailed all about. And each man's grave was a crater in the ground, built by their own foolish desires. I wasn't one of them. I crawled about, examining each of the bodies I came across. But when coming a cross a smaller body, my heart froze, my arms trembled. I reached out to it, arm quivering and barely under my control.

"K...Kakkarot." I mumbled. I could hardly feel the words come out of my mouth. I didn't know what to think, what to do. This all seemed like a dream. "Get up, boy." I began to shove the body with what little strength I had left. "Why are you so still? Get up. Let's go home to your mother."

He was silent. My throat choked up. I tried to ignore it. But for some reason, I couldn't. "Get up!" My cry echoed through the still air. My vision blurred slightly. It was all so strange. "You're strong, Kakkarot! Why are you lying there like that?! Come on! Get up!" I rose to my feet, gritting my teeth together and straining myself. Then I lifted the boy up onto my shoulder. And I left. Everything was so quiet.

"You must be tired, Kakkarot. You did well out there. Have I ever told you how proud I was of you? You're just like me." It felt like I was talking to myself, but I knew he was listening. He was just worn out for fighting so hard.

Weeks later I arrived home. Things looked the same as always, and I still had that boy atop my shoulder. I opened the door and set the boy down on his bed to rest. My hands, body, face, everything was reddened. The room was dark. The air was thin. Everything felt so odd, so strange. So quiet. My wife was no where to be found. Nothing to be found here. Nothing but trail of blood leading from upstairs to outside.

Everything was so dark, so quiet, so strange, so different. I don't know. It made me feel weird. I looked back to the blood on the ground, then to my son, covered in holes and blood, then to the mirror in front of me. And that's when it all hit me. There was nobody here. I was all alone. My body, stiff, motionless, my head, blank. All I could feel was wetness on my cheeks. And I just sat there. In the darkness, all by myself.