Author's Note: Reviews greatly appreciated, criticism reviewed and appreciated. Will update weekly. (UPDATE: fixed some errors pointed out to me. Much obliged!)
Human Limitations, Chapter One:
The Earth spun silently on its axis, a blue marble tossed in a solar system untouched by indigenous life. Planets of beautiful rings, nebulous clouds lit by distant stars; nothing but ice and dust, and lit by flames that flickered out centuries ago. It's a cold dark empty void, lit by the stars of death.
"-Prepare for landing.-" A canned recording of a feminine voice prompted. The computer inside the small, spherical spacecraft chimed once; Although it was redundant, as Raditz barely slept during spaceflights like these. He could chalk it up to nerves, nightmares, or blood-thirsty anticipation, but he never could feel rested in the silent emptiness of space. He distracted himself with thoughts of the mission.
"Kakarot." he said to no one but himself. He grinded his teeth.
Out of what might another man might have termed compassion, Vegeta had finally granted his request to go to Earth; A risky move on his part, going right under Freeza's nose, but one that he felt would pay off. One additional soldier in their crusade was nothing. An additional Saiyan, on the other hand... that was a different story.
The earth was now in visual range. He whistled, seeing right clear through the ozone to the planet's sparkling oceans. In his opinion it looked better than most already. That reminded him of his first conquest.
"Not a bad planet. I certainly hope my little brother has been enjoying himself," He laughed.
"-Landing sequence engaged. Coordinates?"
"I don't care, the nearest point." Raditz regarded the machine offhand.
"-Trajectory confirmed.-"
The console beeped again, numerical signs flashing over the viewing portico. Raditz sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. This was the rough part, being towed in by the gravity. He reclined all the way and braced himself for the G-forces.
And waited. He counted down the seconds twice, and still nothing.
"Huh. Nothing," he blinked, tilting his head to look. Sure enough the outside of the pod was glowing from the friction of entering this foreign atmosphere, and all around was blue sky. Blue, not red.
The red skies would never leave his memory. But they would never exist again, either. How could something so powerful be so goddamn fragile? It didn't make sense and it never would. Raditz shook his long mane, willing away thoughts of planet Vegeta.
"-Please brace for impact-" the computer helpfully recited.
Silently thankful for the distraction, the Saiyan peered through the view-port and blinked in confusion. Below him and quickly rushing towards him were gridlocked transit overpasses crammed with vehicles, mile high concrete dwellings, and all the unmistakable marks of civilization. Raditz only had that moment to blink in surprise before the whole ship rattled around him as it plowed through all of it non-stop towards his destination.
"COMPUTER! HOW THE HELL IS THIS A SUITABLE LANDING PLACE?"
"-Coordinates were set for the nearest point. Please brace for-"
He slammed the computer console input in rage, sending little sparks flying.
"You just can't depend on machines..."
Fortunately for the ship's computer controls, it was designed with Saiyans in mind. Unfortunately for Raditz, they hadn't spared much time on the intelligence.
After a few seconds perforated by loud, high-pitched grinding, the pod cleared the obstructing buildings and the pod impacted heavily in the ground, clearing an area around it like a miniature crater. Raditz softly cursed. That was a landing he hoped never to repeat. If only his pod was built like Vegeta or Nappa's, that would be another thing, but he couldn't afford that kind of upgrade yet. As it were, his ships engines almost conked out trying to stay the course through a steel pylon.
Raditz cursed a little louder this time. He pried himself off the seat and reached for the door open switch. The pod split open with a distinct crack, slowly deactivating the airlock field.
After a second, the air pressure changed slightly, and the air felt warmer and quite a bit dustier due to the crater. Raditz braced himself against the metal frame and stepped out onto the makeshift platform his pod door had created, glancing around in surprise.
A crowd of indigenous people had gathered around. As though they had no fear of invaders.
"What the hell...!" Raditz muttered to himself. He quickly remembered and tapped the indent on his scouter. A rush of lights flashed across the green filtered lens, giving him a readout, and at the same time re-established connection with the others. The soft static hiss on the other side, followed by some background activity, was enough to tell him he was indeed being monitored.
"Looks to me like Kakarot failed..."
As expected, no response. The limited signal wouldn't reach that range for at least a year. He had other things to deal with. Suddenly, however, a harsh beep sounded, accompanied by a large power reading, and approximate coordinates. Raditz took all this in at once.
"The average power level of this species is point 5 or less. This one is coming up 246... and it's close... "
He thought quickly. There was no chance whatsoever that an earthling could have a power like that, regardless of mutations.
"Is that you, Kakarot? What the hell have you been doing on this planet?" he spat, imagining the little snot in front of him. How the hell do you fail to exterminate a race this weak?
As if to prove his own point, he formed a crackling energy blast in one hand and lobbed it with excessive force into a row of buildings, melting them down to hunks of slag and scattering the earthlings who got too close. Even the ones that appeared to be men shrieked and ran.
"Humph... Lambs for the slaughter." he said. Turning on his heel, he privately decided to leave this local population for later. Although, their extermination would have to be handled eventually.
He jumped off the shattered and crumbling pavement as gracefully as a cat and took to the sky. Raditz suddenly smirked, feeling a rush of confidence course through him at the speed and power output he could generate on this planet.
Taking on a burst of speed and he couldn't help but laugh out loud at the way it felt. He did a spiral mid-flight.
"I was right! The gravity here is next to nothing!" he laughed wildly, swooping low at mach speed. He tapped the indent on his scouter and zeroed in on the power level he thought to mark Kakarot's location, then stopped. To his surprise, though, now he was picking up more than the one.
"Hm. Interesting, this one is 310... and 215, clustered to the south ..." he mused aloud. As he did so, he locked the coordinated of the three most powerful, adjusting his flight path to the first.
"Power levels like that, on a little planet like this? Ah yes, I think I understand. Little Kakarot has competition. That might explain a thing or two... Which reminds me,"
Pausing in midair over the smoking city, Raditz carefully removed the device and held in in front of him like a camera, turned towards himself and pressing the perimeter detect switch. It reacted immediately, numbers flashing across the screen. When it finished, he carefully re-attached it and observed his own power. He scowled.
"A grand total of 995; As I feared. Crammed in a damn pod for a year without exercise and I lose strength." Raditz mused. "Not too bad, nothing a little exercise can't help."
"ATTENTION, HOSTILE INVADER!"Raditz looked down in mild amusement as a man in a war machine shouted up at him using a voice-augmentation device and had to raise and eyebrow.
"THIS IS THE MILITARY POLICE! YOU ARE IN VIOLATION! TURN YOURSELF IN! IF YOU CHOSE TO RESIST, WE ARE AUTHORIZED TO USE LETHAL FORCE!" The smaller man said.
Checking his scouter, getting the expected result. The Saiyan almost burst out in a fit of laughter. Who did this little man think he was? He readied the energy necessary to wipe them off the map, but then paused with his hand outstretched. No, reconsidered. He needed the work out.
Raditz sighed, easing off the power keeping him afloat until he reached ground level amidst a nervous group of indigenous military units. They were right to be nervous. The man in the machine, however, missed the glint in his eye.
"Halt! Stay right where you are!" the commander shouted down. Raditz ignored him, walking uninterrupted through the crowd. Several of the group made moves to grab him, but he kept walking and they were just dragged behind him. Hastily fired slugs ricochet off of his forehead, accomplishing nothing but tearing apart some bystanders. Seeing this, many of the men simply dropped their weapons.
Raditz smirked, picking up the pace. Several heavily armed men were clinging of of him and his armor, and now there was a general sense of panic coming from the General.
"What the- What are you doing! I thought I gave the order to use lethal force, didn't you hear-" he shouted, then yelped in alarm as the Saiyan suddenly leaped out of the mass of soldiers and landed on the front of the tank with a loud clang, clearing at least thirty feet in one bound.
"The problem seems to be our definitions of 'lethal' differ. This, commander..." he quipped, placing his right hand firmly around the man's helmet, and firing an explosive burst directly through his skull.
"... is how you administer lethal force." he finished with a smirk.
Tossing aside the dessicated body, the bloodthirsty Saiyan turned and prepared to shotgun volleys of small bolts indiscriminately into the crowd, killing soldier and civilian alike from on top of the tank. His next blast was intercepted suddenly, however, when a new combatant decided to step in and sent it right back at his face almost too fast for him to see. Raditz parried it at the last second, checking to make sure his scouter wasn't damaged. It was probably malfunctioning already, given that it hadn't alerted him.
"Who the hell are you?" Raditz growled, staring down his human challenger. He had scars on his face and had shaggy black hair he wore halfway down his back. He looked like a fighter, if a bit primitive to Raditz eyes. This was the owner of the power of 246 who had been in the area, apparently. They sized each-other up without words.
"Wait... could he be... Kakarot..?" Raditz muttered after a moment. The human looked perplexed.
"The name's Yamcha, if you really wanna know." He growled, taking a fighting pose.
Raditz frowned, shaking his head as if chastising himself.
Of course it's not the brat. What was I thinking? Just because his power-level is close...
Although I've never seen him yet, he should at least bear some resemblance to father.
Then he chuckled.
The mere sound made the hair on Yamcha's neck bristle.
"So tell me. Where can I find a man called Kakarot?" he asked.
"Maybe I know, maybe I don't, but you don't get anything for free, scumbag." the human shot back. He cracked his knuckles, scowling dangerously under furrowed brows.
"Oh really...? Say again?" Raditz matched and outmatched his glare.
"I'm saying, you're scum. Get ready!"
"I'm scum, huh? You seriously intend to fight a Saiyan warrior with that pathetic level of power?" the Saiyan scoffed, like it was the dumbest thing he'd heard all day. Well, It was, considering he'd been in space for months.
"I'm pathetic, huh? I'm not the one picking a fight with defenseless innocents." Yamcha spat back. Saiyan? He thought. He had never heard that before He wondered briefly if it was some kind of space alien he was facing.
"You're out of your league, earthling."
Yamcha readied himself.
That tears it, he thought. Sci-fi movie dialog like that... He can't be human.
"Are you sure you wanna do this?" The Saiyan taunted, mimicking the human's pose. For a few moments they stood mirrored like that, one powerful will trying to oppress the other.
Yamcha swallowed, feeling a lump in his throat threatening to cut off air. He knew he wasn't bluffing. He could feel the oppressive swell of his opponent's aura, unlike any opponent he'd faced. But, something inside him refused to yield. Because, while he could make a break for it and leave this to Goku...
...Backing down wouldn't save the people right in front of him.
He imagined the sweltering desert, the Tenkaichi Budokai, and Piccolo... Then his life in the city, with Bulma. Surely he hadn't gone so soft, he was scared? His thoughts ground to a halt.
The former bandit gritted his teeth, breathing in raggedly and quickly, almost like a chant.
"ROUGA FU FU KEN!" He roared, charging fast and low to attack.
Phasing out like a mirage, he startled the Saiyan with a roughly executed roundhouse kick, which just grazed him as he stepped back. The saiyan smirked in approval as he constantly stepped back from the savage attacks, first a kick, then a series of knife-hand strikes, and an attempted leg sweep which he simply floated above.
"Not bad! My turn!" He said cheerfully.
Raditz made a few quick jabs at him, forcing him to either dodge or block; He chose to parry.
The diverted strike rattled him even through the hasty block he executed, despite merely being a jab. Yamcha ducked the follow-up and tried to retaliate with a two-handed smash, which not only failed, but nearly injured him due to the armor his opponent was wearing.
"Like I said, out of your league." Raditz smirked.
'Shit, looks like my Wolf Fang is out of commission.' Yamcha swore inwardly. 'What now? This guy's power is overwhelming. Gotta have breathing room.'
Yamcha stepped back, using all his speed and ground combat experience to dance just out of reach of the Saiyan's attacks; But his combat experience was no match for the tactics used against him, as the Saiyan phased out and reappeared just above him, raising an open hand charged with just enough energy to finish the fight. Yamcha tenaciously responded with his own blast at almost point blank range. Raditz forced his way through the blast with more of his power, but the blast suddenly gave way.
"What the..." Raditz puzzled for a moment over his opponent vanishing out from under his feet, before his beeping scouter alerted him.
Yamcha reappeared a short distance behind Raditz, charged and ready to fire off another energy attack.
"KamehameHA!" he chanted, letting loose a bright blue energy beam. Raditz was prepared, and moved to catch it. He was taken by surprise as the unanticipated power of it washed over him. This attack was more powerful than it looked, and it had staying power as well.
Raditz growled with effort, matching the wave's intensity and quickly overwhelming it with his own. Blue fire peeled off of him harmlessly as he waded a few steps against the flow of energy; his scouter told him it was fluctuating around 399, by far more than the lesser warrior should have been able to put out.
"You can concentrate your energy to make it more potent! That's a nice trick!" Raditz shouted over the roar. He placed both hands directly in front of himself, and arcs of electricity burst off of them as he poured out his energy.
"NOW LET ME SHOW YOU ONE OF MINE!" He let loose his own devastating attack, instantly blowing away the opposing energy. The blinding light lanced out uncontrolled, striking down more buildings and kicking up a lot of dust from the rubble.
He thought he faintly heard a scream as his blast decimated the general area of his opponent. By now people had abandoned their cars and were attempting to evacuate on foot, making little more progress that way due to overcrowding. The whole area was in chaos. That was more like what he was used to.
His scouter beeped out, informing him the power levels in the area were now minus one.
Smirking, Raditz took his sweet time making pot-shots at the fleeing masses. He secretly considered it his reward after so much downtime to mess around, rather than just raze the place instantly. After a short while, though, he tired.
Raditz panted, a little fatigued from the long trip through space, and took a moment to stretch, uncurling his sensitive tail from around his waist. The wiry appendage waggled behind him relishing the rare opportunity.
"It's a real shame. That one, whatshisname... Yam-kah? He had some fight in him at least." he smirked, despite himself. "Too bad for him..."
Raditz froze with a jolt, pain cutting him off mid sentence.
His vision blurred, the ground swaying dangerously towards him. He didn't feel the pain of his chin colliding with the rock, or even really the sensation of being shoved inches into the already compacted slag made from the asphalt turf. All he felt was the thing connected to his spine, all the way up his spine and through every nerve in his body. A muffled scream forced its way out of his body as he collapsed into unconsciousness.
"Gotcha, you son of a bitch."
Yamcha straddled the invader's back, left hand in a white knuckled grip around the squirming furry appendage, which finally twitched and ceased moving entirely. He let out a sigh of relief, but didn't dare loosen his grip. He shuddered bodily, feeling a wave of nausea sweep over him as the adrenaline of the fight wore off.
Now, he could feel it all.
His right arm was blown clean off by the last shot his opponent sent at him. Fortunately for his survival, the heat from the blast had also cauterized the wound for him, so he didn't have to worry about that now; But he had instinctively masked his Ki in the hopes of surviving somehow, which paid off now. His victory was somewhat dampened by his shame at trying to save himself, but he shook that thought. That's what dragon balls are for. They could forget all of this.
"It's over." he said to himself, trying to calm down.
Now what.
He couldn't fall unconscious, or else this monster would just get up again. And then everyone dies. Nor could he finish him off in this state. He'd sacrificed his right arm just to get to his weak spot. And he wasn't left handed. Hopefully he wouldn't die or something.
So until the others got word of what happened, it was up to him to sit on the space alien.
What unnerved him out of this whole damn situation was the reason he even thought of grabbing the tail. Memories of his friend and rival juxtaposed themselves in his mind now. This mysterious alien killer, who landed in West City. And Goku, who once had a tail, and had been subdued by this very move.
Come to think of it, this explained a lot. About Goku. And it also gave him something to think about while he waited for Bulma.