Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ, and quite frankly, if I did, Funimation would have never been allowed to dub it.
Stephen: Yay! You're finally writing about me!
Umm, Steph, you're not gonna be in here for… *thinks about it * …a really long time.
Steph: So? Reviewers will bug you to write more, so you'll get there. And even if they don't, I will. ^-^
Great -_-; Anyway here goes the only DBZ storyline I got. Enjoy.
Warnings: AU, maybe a little OOC, general absence of most of the main characters in DBZ, I think that's all.
Change of Plans
Raditz was becoming very irritated. Nothing was going as planned anymore. At the start of the fight, the longhaired Saiya-jin had been most confident of the outcome, but now he was having doubts. First off, he hadn't thought that his brother and his green friend would have been able to raise their power levels as high as they had managed to. Next, he hadn't thought that Kakarotto would know about, let alone exploit, the weakness in his tail (although it had been incredibly easy to get out of *that* mess). But regardless, who would have guessed that the crying four year old would have been able to show all three of them up power-wise? The brat wasn't even a full breed anything!
*I need to end this soon, * he thought, watching as said brat cowered before him, tail barely twitching and frozen with fear, *before they figure out how much that brat hurt me. * A few feet away lay Kakarotto, the boy's father, struggling to get up so he could protect his son. Raditz's scouter now showed that all the power the boy had possessed a minute earlier was gone.
"What happened to all that power?" Raditz sneered at the terrified boy. "Well brat?"
"Gohan! Run away, Gohan!" Kakarotto was yelling, still struggling. Raditz started stalking over to the boy, but stopped as his brother yelled again: "NO! Leave him alone!"
He thought a moment, then decided: *the boy can wait, * and made for his brother instead. "You know, dearest brother of mine," he said as he came up even with Kakarotto's head. "I find it obvious that there is something on this planet that has an irreversible effect on Saiya-jins, degrading them into a pathetic mockery of our proud race." Raditz smirked and picked Kakarotto up by his neck, holding the younger warrior a few feet off the ground. "And I do believe it's terminal."
He began to squeeze Kakarotto's neck, but became distracted as his brother's hence forgotten friend let lose another one of his spiral beam attacks. Reflexively, Raditz moved a hand to block while consciously sidestepping the beam. It was then that he realized he had thrust his brother out to catch the blast. Kakarotto screamed as his body was ripped out of Raditz's grip by the beam drilling into his stomach. It pushed the young fighter up into the air before it finally broke through his back.
The beam died almost as quickly as it had come and Kakarotto fell to the earth like a stone, not moving so much as a twitch after he hit. The only movement from his direction was a bit of smoke rising from the hole through his middle and the slight movements of his tattered clothes in the breeze. Raditz realized that Kakarotto had stopped screaming.
"So much for teamwork," Raditz remarked sarcastically as he turned to the last remaining threat. "It wasn't wise of you to do that you know. Now you haven't a prayer to beat me." He cast a wistful glance at his brother's body. "Pity. I wanted to kill him."
"Don't write me off so quickly!" the green man protested, preparing to continue fighting. Raditz laughed.
"Are you truly such a fool?! It wouldn't take a strong wind to knock you over but you still want to fight me?" He laughed again as his opponent scowled in realization of the truth in Raditz's words. Raditz shook his head and continued. "No, I think not," he said still smirking. "Honestly though, I do believe I should get going now, seeing as you've killed my fun." He walked over to where his nephew stood, rooted to the ground whimpering, and picked the boy up by the back of his shirt.
"What are you doing?!" the green man demanded in alarm.
"I can't very well go back empty handed now can I? He's not exactly a warrior, but he's quite powerful and he's young enough that we can beat any silly notions out of his head before they become problems. And already he's more powerful than his father so I see no reason not to take him." With that, Raditz turned and approached his space capsule, tossing the boy in before entering himself. The door slid shut behind him and the green man was left staring as the capsule blasted off, returning to the space from whence it came.
* * * * *
Kami watched in silence as the Saiya-jin's capsule left the atmosphere. He had no way of knowing exactly how things would turn out, but his godly intuition told him prospects would be dreary at best. With a heavy sigh Kami turned away from the balcony and began to retreat inside, but a tug at his senses caused him to turn back. Looking down from his Lookout, Kami could see all of the earth, but his senses were guiding him to a point not so far away. His keen eyes enhanced by Godhood easily picked out the scene on the Earth's surface and Kami stared in wonderment, for his eyes were showing him a glimmer of hope for the otherwise dreary future. Kami's mouth then set into an ironic smile. *Of all the people to protect it…*
AN: Well? Interested yet?
Steph: Anou… wasn't Gohan supposed to destroy Raditz's space ship when…
Are you gonna find and pick at every possible plot hole?! *glares *
Steph: *gulp * No ma'am!
Good. It's AU. I can change that sort of thing! *turns back to the readers * Review if you liked it. Review if you didn't. Constructive criticism is more than welcome, it's desired!