Prologue
The Black Hole in the Basement
The little girl, about six-years old, sat at the table and quietly ate her food. It was dark outside and the low watt bulb just about provided light for the room. She was sat at a small table in the middle of a run-down kitchen, the units unclean and greasy. Her head and shoulders cleared the top of the wooden table, and she had to lean her arms up in order to cut the food.
There was no noise apart from the creak of house.
She carried on in silence, oblivious to her surroundings. Then, above her and distantly, she began to perceive a sound. Like something falling, only much faster and with much greater force. The noise whipped by overhead and then there as sudden rumbling sound and a vibrating of the room. She looked over her shoulder, to the window behind her. She couldn't see anything outside. But she had definitely heard and felt something. Curious she put her fork down, with the piece of beef on the end of it, and hopped off her chair. She made her way out of the kitchen and down the wooden corridor. She reached up and opened the door. Stepping outside she walked down a cluttered and overgrown pathway. She could hear a faint hissing noise in the air and followed it across the small brown field outside the house, which stood alone.
She came across a few pots of ground that were blown out, a shallow path of mud stretching between them. This then led to a larger crater, over the top of which she could see a metallic sphere. She quickened her pace and came to the edge of the crater. In the centre of it was a large metallic sphere. The smoke and noise was emanating from it. She could hear words being spoken in anger, but they were ones she had not heard before. There was a snapping sound, followed by a hiss, and a door opened and a man with extremely long hair tumbled out and collapsed onto his back.
The man gave a wheeze of pain and clutched his side. He wore armour that was broken in several places, and blood leaked down his arm and across his body. His face was bruised, and he had a funny device that slid over one ear and had a coloured glass over his eye. His hair was long, extremely long, black and spiky and disappeared under his body.
The man groaned and opened his eyes. He blinked, spotting the girl, dressed in a thin nightgown, with shoulder length black and white hair, at the top of the crater, staring down at him.
"What do you want?" Raditz growled.
"Nothing," the girl said. "Just looking at you." She cocked her head. "Why are you crying?"
"I'm not crying!" he spat, whilst wiping his eyes. "Saiyan warriors do not cry!"
"You look like you're hurt. Nobody would blame you if you cried. I cry all the time when I get hurt, even for little scratches."
"Yeah well that's because you're a baby." Raditz groaned as he rolled over and pulled himself to his feet, clutching his side.
The girl puffed her cheeks. "I am not a baby! I'm six years old!"
"Yeah, yeah…" He tapped his scouter and it blipped onto the girl.
7-
No other readings were picked up in the immediate area. "Kid when I was your age I was already being sent out to genocide planets, trust me you're a baby in comparison."
"What's genocide?"
"Nothing you need concern yourself with. Hopefully for all your life."
He tapped his scouter and looked around. No other readings were being picked up. "You out here all alone?" he asked.
"Yeah, all by myself." She spoke with a note of pride.
"Huh…" He tapped his scouter, turning it off. He moved the hand at his side and winced, hissing in pain again. "Do you live anywhere, or are you just sitting in the field?"
"I live in the house up there. Do you want to come?"
"Sure. Do you have any medical stuff?"
"Maybe. I can check for you."
"Thanks…" He gave her a quizzical look and then shook his head. He clambered out of the crater and the girl led him along the field. The grass crunched underneath his boots and he glanced around at it. There was nothing out there for miles, though he thought he could see some mountains in the distance. He looked up. A starry and clear night, but no moon.
"No moon…" he muttered.
"Huh?" the girl asked, looking over her shoulder.
"There's no moon on this planet."
The girl looked shocked. "Of course there's no moon. If there was a moon the great beasts would come and kill everyone!"
Despite himself Raditz smirked. Their reputation travelled fast it seemed.
They carried on in silence for a moment.
"There's the house," the girl announced, pointing forward. She sounded excited.
Raditz looked up. The house was large, three floors, and seemed to stretch out onto the back. It also looked old. Very old. The wood was crooked and weather beaten, parts of it looked like they were crumbling.
"Is it safe?" Raditz asked.
"Of course it is!" the girl replied. "This is really fun, I've never had people over to the house before."
"I can see why…" He looked around at the area again. Nothing there.
They stepped inside and she led him down the corridor to the kitchen, Raditz stepping gingerly as each footstep caused a loud creaking sound that he did not like. Much of the house was wreathed in darkness, the various low watt bulbs shedding very little light on the area. For some reason Raditz was very unnerved by the whole experience. He couldn't find the reason, when he probed himself for the information though. He settled on the idea that it must be because he was injured and therefore not in a fit state for battle. That had to be it.
He grimaced. Stupid job. He'd been misinformed about the make-up of the population. There had actually been some competent fighters, with some strong technology on the planet. It had not been as easy as he had been told it would be. Now that he thought of it, he could have sworn he detected a smirk on Zarbon's green face when he handed the assignment over to him. Stupid asshole, when Raditz got back he punch him right on his precious nose.
He wouldn't of course. And if he punched Zarbon the most he would get in reply would be a howl of laughter as his fist bounced off of him, which would only humiliate Raditz further. Not to mention he could hardly admit he had trouble, lest he endure the mocking of Nappa and Vegeta. He clenched his fist. Damn them. Weren't they all in this together? Why did they keep picking on him then? Typical bullies, all of them, always kicking at the people beneath them.
This was obviously why he was diverted from his original path from Frieza planet 63. He'd be damned if he turned up looking badly injured from what was meant to be a routine and easy assignment. Of course, the stupid pod had then developed a fault, probably as a result of getting hit by the assigned planet's defences. He had only just managed to correct it, when he found himself faced with crash landing on this desolate rock, out in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of nowhere.
"Do you want food?"
"Huh?" Raditz's head snapped up. He realised, now, that he had zoned out and followed the girl automatically into the kitchen. She was looking up at him with a slightly quizzical look. "Sorry what did you say?"
"I said," the girl began, with exaggerated exasperation, letting him know that this was not the first time she was repeating her question, "do you want food?"
"Of course! Uh… that is… if you've got some to spare."
"Well… I've got the remains of my food. It's not much and a little cold now, but I could do you something more if you wanted."
Raditz looked at her plate of food. It wasn't much and his stomach hurt. But he didn't want to deprive her of all the food in the house or make too much for her. Quieting his Saiyan urges he smiled at the girl. "That'll be fine, thank you," he said. "You just work on finding the medical stuff for me." At those words he suddenly became conscious that he must have been bleeding onto the floor. He looked down, blushing, and then blinked. He turned his head and looked behind him.
No bloodstains.
That isn't… possible… He knew he was bleeding out, he had to be. So where had the stains gone?
"Is this okay?"
He looked up. The little girl had manoeuvred a chair over to a cabinet side and was standing on top of it. In her hand she held up some bandages and what looked like a spray of some sort. "This is all the medical stuff we have," the girl said. "I hope it will be enough for you."
Raditz took the spray bottle and glanced over it. He held it over a cut on his arm and sprayed it. It stung. Badly. He grimaced and then looked down at his hand. The cut on it had stopped bleeding and the skin looked like it was beginning to heal over. He grinned at the girl. "This will be perfect."
The girl smiled brightly and hopped down from the chair. Raditz seated himself at the table, in front of the food, and carefully administered the spray to his other body parts, taking off his battered and broken armour first. It had the same effect, though the pain was more intense the greater the damage was. After he had done this he carefully wrapped the bandages over the wounds and the girl supplied a pin with which to hold it together. Satisfied that his body was not going to fall apart, Raditz nodded his approval and began to eat the food, whilst silently attempting to calculate how much his power would increase by.
"This is really good," he said after a moment, through a stuffed mouth. He meant it as well. It was good. And not just in comparison with the gloop they normally got served by the canteen.
"I cooked it myself!" the girl declared with pride.
"That's… incredible…" Raditz frowned a little and glanced down at his food. "So where's your mom and dad?" he asked, eating some more.
The girl shrugged. "I don't know. They've gone."
"Gone?"
She nodded.
"And that doesn't bother you?"
"Should it?" She cocked her head. "Everyone else has gone too."
"Everyone else?"
"There used to be people who'd come by. Neighbours and people. They'd say things to me. Call me names. Throw stones at me. That's how I'd often get hurt. But I always had that spray to heal me."
"Throw stones at you?" Now he was even more puzzled. "Why would they do that?"
The girl shrugged. "They'd call me a demon child." She puffed her cheeks a little. Then shook her head. "I don't understand people. I never did them any wrong, I just tried to be friendly."
"And what happened to them?"
"I don't know. One day they just stopped turning up."
"And you never wondered?"
"Why would I? They didn't like me and I didn't like them."
"What about your parents?"
She shrugged and kept her mouth shut.
Strange… and stranger… Raditz ate some more of the food. Just what is going on in the place?
"Do you have parents?" she asked suddenly.
"Huh? Oh yeah, I do. That is… I did."
"You did?"
"They're all gone now. Dead. They were killed. An accident a asteroid slammed into my home planet and killed them all." He sat back in his chair a little and was silent for a moment. "Mom, Dad… even my little brother… There's only three of us left now, that is my people."
The little girl snorted and looked down. Raditz narrowed his eyes. She giggled.
"What's so funny?" he asked, voice terse.
"Your people got killed by an asteroid," she said, holding back laughter.
"Listen kid I'd shut up if I were you," Raditz growled. "I've killed people younger than you and I won't have many compunctions about doing it again."
The girl's head snapped up. She stared into Raditz's eyes and then recoiled a little in fear. She sniffed and dropped her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I… I just thought it was funny that… that a race of people who can travel in ships, across space, got caught out by an asteroid… I mean, wouldn't they have seen it coming?"
Raditz glared at the girl. Then his expression softened and he sat back. He had to admit, it was a question that had occurred to him often. Unfortunately one didn't ask awkward questions of Frieza, not if they had any sense. And Raditz had had quite a lot beaten into him over the years.
"I don't know," he said after a moment. "But they didn't and they're gone."
"…Sorry…"
"It was years ago now, I don't think on it much. Besides, I hated my father."
The girl sniffed some more.
"What are you crying for you big baby?" Raditz said.
"You're being mean!" the girl cried. "And I'm not a baby!"
"Yes you are. Baby, baby," he teased, in a cooing tone, watching her grow frustrated at his remarks.
"I am not!" she screamed.
Suddenly Raditz's scouter bleeped - a warning.
"What the -?" he tapped at the scouter.
1,000-
That was as strong as him! "But that's not possible!" he breathed, tapping the scouter to find out where it was. "There's nobody on this place except…" The scouter locked in - on the girl. Raditz's eyes widened. But that wasn't possible! Her power level was seven. It had to be broken!
"Are you okay?" the girl asked, her frustration gone, replaced by curiosity. "You look panicked."
Raditz tapped at the scouter. It locked onto the girl:
7-
He sighed. Stupid thing. "It's just this piece of machinery," he said, pointing at the scouter. "It screws up sometimes. Almost gave me a heart attack."
"Oh? What does it do?"
"Reads 'battle power'," he said. "It gives a reading of someone's strength and allows for a numerical comparison of opponents." He paused. "Supposedly. Half the time I think it's just making it up as it goes along."
The girl laughed. Raditz smiled a little and finished the food. It was good and surprisingly filling. But he suspected that he would need more. He had to be on his way, or else he'd be getting into trouble. Besides, he still didn't much like the house. There was something off about it, from what he'd already seen, and he didn't want to see much more of it.
He stood up. The girl looked up at him. "Thank you for your hospitality," he said. "But I have to be on my way."
"Don't go," she said. "I haven't talked with anyone in ages."
"I have to."
"But… But… I haven't shown you the thing yet."
"What thing?"
"The black hole. In the basement." She cocked her head.
Raditz's eyes widened. "That isn't possible."
"Yes it is," she said, a hint of triumph in her voice at having kept his attention. "I'll show you."
She hopped off her chair and walked out of the kitchen.
"No, it really isn't," Raditz said, following her. "If there was a black hole down there, this whole planet, not just this house, would be gone. Unless we're on the event horizon, which also isn't possible because my ship and my scouter would have alerted me to that fact." He followed her along the corridor, the wood creaking as he walked, passing through the shadows separated by the dim light. She hauled open a door, beneath a staircase, and walked down a narrow set of stairs. Raditz hunched himself and followed after her. The corridor was pitch-black and Raditz turned on the light of his scouter, so that he could see the girl in front of him.
"What is with this place?" he wondered aloud.
"Huh?" the girl replied.
"This place. This house is really old, and I mean really. The wood is being eaten away at, but it stands. The dust is everywhere. And more to the point my…" He paused. The girl seemed utterly oblivious to the nature of the house around her and he didn't want to completely freak her out by saying that his trail of blood had disappeared.
"My what?" she asked.
"My scouter isn't picking up any life signs on the whole planet, apart from you and me," he said.
"So? I thought you said that thing made it up as it went along?"
"Yes but…"
They reached the bottom of the stairs and the girl turned right into another small corridor. Raditz followed her to a small door.
"But what?" she asked.
"Nothing. Just wondering where the food came from."
The girl shrugged. "I don't know. It's there."
He raised an eyebrow at her and then looked up. "Is this it?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Behind here is the black hole?"
She nodded again.
"Okay then…" He stepped forward and reached out with his right hand. He nudged the door with his finger and it swung open. The room was dark. Dark except for twenty-eight white lights, twinkling brightly in the corner of the room. Raditz frowned at them and stepped forward.
"Be careful!" the girl shrieked, gripping onto his leg. "It's dangerous."
"I'm okay," Raditz replied, putting his hand on her head. He stepped forward a bit more and looked around the room. He fumbled his hand along the wall next to the doorframe and found a switch. He flipped it and the low level light came on. It illuminated the room, which was small and bare. Except for one corner. In that corner an intense darkness sat, seeming to draw the light to it, so it shone brighter at its extremities. The only thing coming from within the darkness was the twenty-eight white lights. "That's… strange…" Raditz stepped forward, pushing the girl back. She clung to the side of the door, sweating a little.
He crept forward. He didn't feel any increase in gravity as he got closer, nor did his scouter give off any warnings. He got closer… and closer… and closer… he was now only a few steps away from the mass of darkness, with the white lights in it. He reached out with his hand…
"Don't -!" the girl cried.
His fingers brushed against the darkness. It felt… solid… and cold, colder than anything he'd felt before…
"Kakarott…" a voice said, floating around the room.
"What?" Raditz's head snapped. That name… that was his brother's name. But what…?
Suddenly images assaulted his eyes. There was his brother, a baby, crying and fighting against the grip of an elderly man - his brother, older now, staring at a gold ball on a mantel piece - fighting against an army - leaping forward, a red light blazing around him against… Frieza?
Raditz stumbled backwards and fell onto the ground. The images ceased. He panted and stared at the darkness. Then he looked up and over his shoulder. The girl was there, crouched down, her knees pulled up to her chin, her arms hugging her legs. She looked up and stared at Raditz.
"Where were you?" she whispered.
"What?
"You disappeared… You were gone for hours…" She turned her head to the side. "You left me…"
"But… how…?" He glanced back at the mass of darkness. "I was here, for only a few seconds, I…" He thought on what had happened. He had heard a voice, had seen things. His younger brother, he must have been the hair was identical to his father's, living, alive and… challenging Frieza? It didn't seem possible… and yet…
He stepped back from the darkness. If he wasn't sure before he was now. He had to get out of this place. This place… it was more than strange. And he felt that its behaviour, its strangeness, had a lot to do with the mass of darkness that he was looking at now. Whatever it was it was not a black hole. It was something else. Something more…
But that vision. He couldn't get it out of his head. And somehow he thought it was true. Somehow, he felt it had to be.
He turned and started towards the door.
"Where are you going?" the little girl said, jumping to her feet as Raditz walked past her. She pursued him along the corridor and up the stairs. "Where are you going? Talk to me! Answer me!"
"I'm going to find my brother," Raditz said, stopping at the top of the stairs. "I saw a vision. They… showed me that he was alive. And more than that…" He paused and then carried on along the corridor.
"But… but you'll go without me… you'll leave me…"
"I have to. There's no extra room in the pod, not in this one."
He needed to report in as well. He had to tell Vegeta and Nappa about this. Though he felt he'd keep the whole of the vision to himself… that would sound ludicrous…
"Leave me alone… here…"
Blip… blip… blip…
He'd make something up; perhaps even allow them to think it was weakness that he was doing this. Something about needing help to attack a planet…
"Don't… Don't go…"
Blip… blip… blip…
The records, he would be able to get them from the database. If Kakarott had left on a pod then he'd be able to find the records. He seemed to recall that he had had a weak power, or so he'd been told, so he would have been sent to a planet with low power levels.
"Stay with me… Don't be like the others… don't leave me…"
Blip… Blip… Blip…
Raditz snapped out of his thought process. He had stepped through the front door. And he now noticed that his scouter was making noises. That dull blipping sound. Annoyed he tapped it to find out what was wrong.
10,000^
His eyes popped. Where had that…!?
Slowly he turned around. Behind him was the girl. Crying, looking down at her feet, mumbling to herself. The scouter locked onto her, the source of the power. Which kept rising.
"Go then…" the girl snuffled. "Be like the others. Leave me all alone. Like my parents. Like the neighbour… think of me like them…"
20,000^
Raditz took a step back.
"Listen… listen to me…" he said, voice shaky. "This place… is doing something to you, that thing downstairs is… I need you to listen to me…"
She shook her head.
40,000^
"You're a liar…" the girl growled. "I hate you! I wish you'd never come here!"
"What are you?"
"Go away!" The girl raised her head as she screamed at him, her eyes narrowed tight and her fists balled.
The scouter screeched and then cut out.
Raditz trembled. Silently, at the back of his mind, he was thankful for the circuit breaker he had installed on the machine, otherwise his eye could have been gone as it overloaded. But at the forefront of his mind was his concern with the power output reading, the last one he'd seen before the machine cut out.
600,000^
The kid was more powerful than Frieza. And still rising.
"Listen to me…" Raditz began, his voice shaking a little. He struggled to get it under control. He took a few steps forward. "I'm going to get you out of this place… But I can't right now, I can tell you that. But I can get you out of here."
The girl looked at him. Her eyes started to calm.
"I need to go find my brother. And after I've got him I can come back here and I will get you." Raditz looked down at her, bending his body lower so that he was almost level with her. "I don't know what's going on here and I don't know what that thing is in your basement. But your parents didn't leave you, not intentionally. And the neighbours didn't go away on their own either. Nor did all life on this planet just disappear. Something is going on. And I will take you away from this."
"Do you… do you promise…?" She looked at him, with a mix of hope and distrust. She wanted to believe but at the same time…
Though he wasn't well practiced in it, Raditz gave her a warm smile. "I promise. As soon as I've got my brother, I'll be back here to get you."
She stared into his eyes. And then she smiled. Happy now.
"I'll be waiting," she said. "I'll be sitting right here and waiting."
Raditz scrunched her hair and stepped back.
"Soon, I'll be back soon."
He nodded at her. She smiled back and sat on the front step.
"I hope you manage to find your brother," she said. "Maybe your other family is still out there. Maybe mine is too!"
"Perhaps," he replied. "We can always hope."
She smiled to herself, content.
Raditz made his way down the path. He clambered over the lip of the crater and then stepped into his pod. He sat back in it and typed in the commands. The pod door closed and the thrusters powered on. The pod began to levitate off of the ground. The little girl looked up, following the slow rise of the pod. She thought she could see him, through the view port of the pod. She waved at him.
Then the pod thundered upwards, streaking into the dark sky above.
The little girl sat back and drew her legs up to her body. She rested her chin on her knees.
And she waited.
So here we are again.
Hello everyone and welcome to Dragon Ball XVI. The follow-on to Dragon Ball XV. Now I wasn't sure about doing this, but eventually decided 'what the hell' and went for it. The idea was kicking around and wouldn't go away. Hence the stinger at the end of XV.
For the uninitiated - XVI can be read without having read XV (there'll be a synopsis of the events there at the start of the first proper chapter - i.e. the next one) and this prologue contains no information that needed to be known from the previous story. Whatever your reason for popping along to this story, know that you are very welcome and I hope you enjoy it!
This prologue doesn't have much to do with the story description. But it will do, eventually. There's some important ground information being introduced here (to which I will say nothing other than the number of lights is specified for a reason) - even if it does look like the story of an out-of-character Raditz finding himself in an Edgar Allen Poe mystery ;)
Obviously Raditz never makes it back, this takes place about a week before his fateful trip to Earth. (Incidentally how did he ever find out that Goku was alive in canon?)
Just in case it wasn't clear, the '-' and '^' symbols on the scouter represent a stable power level and a rising one respectively. Scouters overload on the basis of a rapid increase in power, not on the actual scale of the power itself, so Raditz or anyone else being able to read Frieza's power level (when he's not powering up) works that way.
Update wise there will probably be one at the end of this month, to kick things off, and after that it'll likely be once a month (due to real life commitments and another project I'm working on).
A final note of caution: this is currently a 'T' rating, but it may be getting bumped up. This could well get pretty dark and it's going to go outside the bounds of a conventional DBZ story (much more so than XV did). So, yeah, fair warning in advance.
Other than that, it leaves me to say thank you all, as ever, for reading and reviewing (I hope!) and that I hope you enjoy story to come!