Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Dragon Ball Franchise or its characters. That would be an interesting feat, considering that the show started before I was born and the manga came before that. Furthermore, their original forms exist in a language I do not understand.
Summary: This is a what if AU where Bardock survives because he does not make it back to Planet Vegeta before it is destroyed. He decides to find his son but because he did not make it back, he doesn't know where find him. Goku and Bardock meet up in the time gap between the Baba Saga and the Second World Martial Arts Tournament.
I have more to say in relation to this story but have placed it at the bottom of the chapter, as I know some readers don't like having a ton of reading material before their chapter. Still, I highly recommend that readers look at what I have to say there, especially for this particular chapter. That is where I will try to keep the majority of my extra content in the future. Please enjoy.
Chapter 1:
The image of Planet Vegeta turning into a ball of fire and the sound of Frieza's laughter echoed through Bardocks mind, startling him awake. Coming to, he found himself under the bodies of his teammates. He pushed their corpses off so that he could stand, trying to fend off the tight knot in his chest as he felt the weight of their cooling corpses shift and heard the rustle of their lifeless forms.
Dodoria was long gone. It was a good thing he was too sloppy to make sure the job was done. Otherwise, Bardock truly would have been killed. His own team would never have been so careless. They always gave the planets they'd cleared a circle or two and fired extra shots at the supposedly dead bodies of strong enemies in order to be confident that the deed was done, even if the scouters picked up nothing. As far as Bardock was concerned, this stood as further proof that they were not 'low level' but the absolute best, proving more thorough than even one of Frieza's personal 'yes' men.
How long had he been out anyway? He had to get to Planet Vegeta before Frieza! He had to warn everyone so that they could fight back against him. Together, his people could stop Frieza. They would destroy him for his treachery and no one would ever try to mess with the Saiyans ever again! All would quake at the merest mention of them.
He cast one last look at his team; they'd had his back so many times over the years and had even protected him one last time in death. Bardock felt a lump in his throat at the thought that not only had he arrived too late to save them but that he couldn't even stick around long enough to give them a proper burial on the planet where they had fallen.
They deserved better from him, but he had to get home and warn the others.
With one last glance, Bardock flew off toward his pod. The moment he had it open, he crawled in and punched in the coordinates for home with fingers that were slippery with sweat and blood. The door sealed shut and the tiny ship took off. He denied himself the option of using the sleeping gas or the emergency medical support system for the travel despite his current condition, knowing that either would render him unconscious and he might not wake up in time to warn his people before Frieza struck.
Bardock turned on the radio and switched it to the frequency used by Frieza's higher ranking forces. It was something that had taken him years of fiddling with the system to get. Luckily, he'd had the time to kill during many trips in the pod and the resulting benefits had proven well worth the effort. He'd used it to listen to radio chatter about planets, so that he could make better selections for his team when they weren't given specific assignments. He was the only one who had the capacity to listen in on the channel. He had kept it a secret from his team so they would not share the blame if he was ever caught.
As Bardock adjusted the system, he wondered; if he and his team had left for Meat together would he have heard Dodoria and his men discussing their plans? Would the others still be alive? No, probably not…if they'd caught wind of a trap, they would have charged across Planet Meat to challenge Dodoria and his men head on and probably have been quickly dispensed of by the spiky terror…maybe with the addition of torture, so Dodoria could inform Frieza of how they had found out…
Would that additional time be enough for Dodoria to discover Bardock's new powers? A shiver, either from revulsion or fear, he wasn't sure which, ran down his back. After all, Frieza had wanted Kanassa for that reason in the first place. What would he do if he discovered a Saiyan had gotten it? The sudden image of him, trapped in a room to grow old and decrepit without ever fighting again crossed his mind and he struggled with the suddenly overwhelming urge to puke right there in the cockpit.
Bardock forced the thoughts from his mind; this was not the time for him to dwell on such things. What's done was done. As a warrior, he had learned the particularly hard truth that there was no point on dwelling on what was and what could have been from a young age. Now he had to focus on the future.
So, he would have to rely on the signal he'd hacked so long ago and work with what he could get from it. The moment he tuned in, the device sprang to life, full of activity which poured over into the speakers as chatter about planetary attacks by Frieza's elites upon Saiyans who were out on assignments. Saiyan's clearing planets were shot down the moment they completed their own missions. Outposts were being torn asunder, entire spaceports blown into the next dimension to kill individuals who were in the process selling cleared planets to interested buyers. He growled in frustration, unable to do anything but listen.
Bardock was so tired. It was the blood loss, he knew. And now that the adrenaline rush had passed, he was scared that if he slipped into a sleep he'd never wake up in time... maybe not at all. Still, his eyelids continued to grow heavy, even as he listened to the grisly audio of Frieza's soldiers wiping out his people.
Then Cui's voice came through, talking about how a team of kids sent to Desset were dead at the hands of the natives. Bardock's body immediately rushed with blood-pounding anger. He released a roar of fury as he punched the radio system, gutting the machinery as he wished he could do to the purple worm of a soldier.
That was Raditz's mission. His first ever.
His team and now his firstborn, Bardock was losing everyone.
Suddenly, Bardock was jarred from his thoughts as he saw a small, silvery dot pass by in the distance, only visible due to the light from a nearby star glinting off of it. He wouldn't have noticed it except for a feeling, almost like a pull. He was familiar with it because it was the same one he'd experienced first in the rejuvenation chamber and then again as he was running past his youngest son in the medical facility, causing him to stop and look at the boy.
He'd barely had time to recognize this before he was assaulted by a new set of visions. This time, he got flashes of the boy at different ages, starting somewhere probably around his first decade and running through into his second, although he was still on the thin side at the end, meaning he was probably still waiting for the final fill-in that would come in his mid-twenties. What he saw was strange; although his son was clearly a warrior, he was not a normal Saiyan one.
He found himself back in his capsule as the connection faded again, left with nothing but the sound of his own ragged breath filling the cockpit. His face felt slick with blood, sweat and, who knows, maybe even a few tears.
Less than five minutes later, he saw an explosion in the distance, a glowing sphere from which sparkling debris shot out from like glitter; a sight both beautiful and terrible to behold. There was only one celestial body of any great size in that direction that would be close enough to see. Planet Vegeta… he was too late.
For a few minutes, he was unable to do anything but stare at the glowing, superheated mass that used to be his home world. He had been part of a baby boom that was started so that they could claim that world as their own.
He'd spent his childhood training up attending tournaments with the other children and taking beatings from the adults, so that he would be strong enough when the time came.
Of course, the Great Tuffle War still went on for the better part of a decade. That was to be expected, seeing as the Tuffles had both technology and numbers. If the Saiyans hadn't taken the vast swath of croplands they had in the first battle, the uprising would have only lasted a week or two. The Saiyans would have been starved into submission as they were cut off from the food supply Tuffles, who usually gave it to them in exchange for ores and rock the Saiyans dug up, an arrangement that was slavery in all but title.
And oh, what a battle it had been. His first true battle and a taste of the days to come. Still, it was a hard war and the Tuffles proved to be good foes. The Saiyans only won by the light of the full moon, the first one where there water supply hadn't been pumped with drugs by the "gentle, peaceful" Tuffles.
It had been so wonderful the following morning to stand on a planet that was finally theirs and begin to spread their reach outward to the stars once again for the first time in generations.
Now, that was all gone in a flash, leaving nothing but a ball of molten rock, shooting sparks into the void. He watched it fade from an almost blinding white to a golden yellow and finally to a red-hot coal before it crossed his mind that he had to get out of there before Frieza or his goons spotted his ship, but where to?
He tried to think, struggling to get past the image of the burning planet that was now freshly branded into his mind. He closed his eyes and with a monumental effort, focused his thoughts. It had to be somewhere Frieza either didn't know about or didn't care about, but near enough that he wouldn't bleed out getting there.
Finally, Bardock had an idea. He punched in a set of coordinates.
It was no secret that Saiyans had voracious appetites. Even if they didn't actively try to exterminate life on the planets they came to, too many of his people in one place could strip a thriving planet bare, especially if they were there for long periods of time.
Because of this, the Saiyans had multiple planets for themselves to act as giant larders. Some originally trade partners with the Tuffles that had been supplying their food in the first place and others added on after in response to the growing Saiyan population as they started "exploring" the universe. The goal was to build a big enough system of them that they could continually harvest the planets for centuries without depleting their food supply.
They were also incredibly secretive about these worlds. If something happened to them, the Saiyan population could potentially have been starved out. Some would have escaped to other worlds but many would have been too stubborn. Desperate, hungry Saiyans made horrible company, even for other members of their own species.
Still, most of their people didn't know where these actually were. They were too busy doing their job and as long as the few workers tasked with keeping the food flowing performed their own duties well enough, there was no need to be concerned. But, as important as the food was, few Saiyans wanted to waste their time with the tedious work of growing the supply, herding animals and tending fields, when there were fights to be had and planets to clear. They'd done enough labor under the Tuffles. Bardock still ground his teeth when he recalled days digging up and carrying iron ore in hopes of meeting the recently raised quota. Still, better than the groups who got coal. It was much easier to leave a couple planets with civilizations intact and transport groups from these places to other planets of interest that lacked the potential workforce.
His mate, Gine, was one of those Sayians who acted as a "liaison" with their feeder civilizations. She may not have racked up the planetary apocalypse toll, like most of their people, but she had the pick of the best foods. She was probably a major reason he and his team grew in level so fast. She knew exactly what to give them to keep them as healthy as the elites. She had full access to that food, and she'd known where the planets they came from were located.
Although neither he nor his team had ever visited these planets, he had managed to convince Gine to tell him their locations. He'd wanted to know just in case his team needed a safe haven or a place to heal and couldn't make the trip all the way back to one of Frieza's facilities. If they had survived the attack from Dodoria and Planet Vegeta hadn't been at risk, it was probably where he would have had them lay low.
Now he typed in a set of coordinates for one of these planets. Maybe some of the other Saiyans were still alive out there, out on food-collecting duty. Perhaps even Gine herself. He sighed and shook his head, knowing better. She would have been off-duty for a few more weeks, being instructed to take nutrient restoratives after giving birth to Kakarot. Saiyans took their health very seriously and having offspring had a major impact on the women who carried them. Bardock had heard that the scientists they'd been assigned by the cold empire had been requesting funding in order to set up artificial growth chambers to get around this problem, along with the time wasted carrying the offspring to term but they didn't have access to that yet. She would have been in one of the medical facilities on Planet Vegeta when Frieza blew it up.
Bardock clenched his fists again and growled at the thought. It felt like he had lost yet another member of his team. And now she was gone, too. Just like all the others.
He sighed, unable to take any more of this. It was just all too much for him as the rays from the dying planet lit the inside of the pod as red as his blood.
He activated the hibernation state and the emergency life support. He had to slow the deterioration of his health over the few days it would take to get to the planet. As he activated them and slipped into sleep, he hoped that he wouldn't bleed out or get an infection before he got there.
Hopefully, he'd wake up when the time came, rather than slip into a coma having no certainty of their being anyone interested in reviving him at the end of his journey.
For my Dragon Ball exposure: I grew up on the DBZ English Dub and have just watched all of Dragon Ball (Eng Dub) for the first time and am starting to watch DBZ again for the first time in about a decade. I expect to watch it all as well as the other DB series and have started rewatching it in English Subbing as well. So, while the English Dub will probably take priority, I will take the original content into account and will make note of it as I go (generally at the end of Chapters). One important example right now has to do with my plans for Bardock based off of "Bardock: Father of Goku." I plan on making his personality more akin to that of what I saw in the English Subbed version than the English Dubbed one. That means he was in no way repentant for the destruction he caused to other worlds and was more interested in Kakarot eventually taking vengeance for Planet Vegeta than on ending Frieza's tyranny. For powers and effects, I will stick with the English Dubbed version, where he can see both the future and into minds and where it pours over into his son somewhat (for reasons of possible future plot points, possible plot hole filling and shameless shortcut making uses). I am going to assume that in the case of Goku that it either weakened with time or was damaged when he hit his head but he still has some minor subconscious remains.
I have yet to see any Dragon Ball GT, which I will wait to see before considering in-depth application, as I am aware many fans don't like it and refuse to consider it canon. All I have seen of Dragon Ball Super are the movies "Battle of the Gods" and "Resurrection F." I will try to remain as true to the source material as I can but if I make a major mistake, please feel free to point it out.
I also like to headcanon characters in movies to exist/ have existed in the main universe but don't make it relevant to the Z fighters. For example, perhaps Cooler heard about some stuff going down in a faraway Galaxy that could eventually be a threat in the cold empire and comes across a much younger, weaker Broly and they take each other out long before the epic fight between Goku and Frieza. So, such characters may or may not arise in my story.
I am not familiar with any of the games and have little interest in becoming so. Therefore, there will probably be no content from the games.
I will occasionally come across exceptions and other content to my own rules. At such points, I will inform my audience (again at the bottom). For instance, I am applying "Dragon Ball Zero," to this story. I am also aware of "Episode of Bardock," but will not count it beyond using it as a way to further assess Bardock's character (his lines about not being good with kids and that he didn't really care what happened to the people of the town who saved him but changed his mind only once he had developed personal attachments are two important things. A third thing you may have noticed is the Tuffles enslaving Saiyans part, which I know came from GT but liked too much when researching to pass up in building up the Saiyan background.
Also, I am sure you noticed that I made no references to Bardock's final visions where he sees that Goku is destined to face Frieza. Although I admit that it was originally an accident, I decided to stick with it under the assumption that Bardock has more important visions as he gets into more perilous situations, which does seem to be the case in the episode. I will probably write him discovering this in a later chapter but for now, his intentions to find his son will be more personal reasons.
If anyone feels that Bardock only seeing Gine as being no more important than the rest of his team seems off, I am running under the assumption that most Saiyans are not usually loyal to a single mate for life but still only couple with people they deeply respect. It seems like something that they would do. I might or might not write Raditz as being the son of a different woman but that the Saiyans don't really care if they are siblings through one or both parents and don't much care for such technicalities when discussing family.
Thank you for devoting your time and attention to checking out this piece to see if, out of all the pieces here, it is one worth reading. I hope that you enjoyed my first chapter and that the rest of the story continues to be an enjoyable read.