Disclaimer: Still don`t own it.
Blitzkrieg
"'Beat' doesn`t do it right," Panboukin replied, slapping his pod shut and stepping out of the crater around it before looking around. "Looks like it`s been cleared for quite some time."
"I know... Be on your guard though, I think this is a trap," Totepo explained, lowering his voice accordingly before putting on his scouter and tapping the button to turn it on. Instantly, he realized just how much of a trap this was.
Panboukin only nodded in agreement.
"Twelve of `em, plus one farther away."
"Last one`s the strongest... I think he`s reading at a stable 20,000," Totepo stated shortly, resolute in his words. "We`d be creamed even if we went Oozaru," Boukin growled. "Can`t do that `cause the moon ain`t out."
"We`ve definately been set up then," Totepo stated. "Big time," Boukin replied. "We`ll make a break for the pods on my mark," Totepo ordered, drawing down as if into a fighting stance, something that Panboukin copied without hesitation. The two growled lightly and began to power up as several forms emerged from hiding behind a number of buildings, each of them utterly smug in appearance.
Totepo recognized each of them, but in specific, he recognized the warrior with the horns on his head.
"Ready?" Boukin asked. Totepo merely nodded.
"MARK!"
An explosion sounded behind them, obviously from a distance away as eight more warriors appeared from behind, trashing the pods in an instant with several high powered blasts of energy.
"Shit," Boukin muttered. "Looks like we`re going to go down fighting then," Totepo stated with a roguish smirk, showing a bit of his former youth even through his old age. Most Saiyans didn`t live past thirty, Totepo had made it all the way to seventy-five and by most accounts, he was only getting started.
"Dibs on breaking Darwel`s horns," Totepo exclaimed. "Bet I can break more noses than you though," Panboukin retorted with a grin. "You`re on."
With a pair of loud war cries, both Saiyans lunged forward to meet their would-be assassins head on, fearless of the repercussions and knowin g that they probably wouldn`t survive anyway. It was a special kind of craziness that drew Saiyans to fight the battles that would in all likelihood kill them, and despite the fact that Totepo and Panboukin were two of the most ragged, unfit warriors in the entire employ of the Saiyan 'clearance teams,' they exmplified this fact like few others, heartily running after death like a lawyer after an ambulance.
Let us have peace, let us have life
Let us escape the cruel night
Celipa shook her head dimly, tugging her armor up a bit further until it set just right in the way that she usually wore it. Her tail still ached a bit, the jolts that coursed through the regen tanks always left if feeling like someone had just lightly rolled an iron over it, leaving it stuff, sensitive and more than a little static charged.
"What now?" Toma asked, kicking the cramp of out of one knee and straightening his own tail to the extent that the bones within popped several times as a result. "I don`t know," Celipa replied while Bardock plopped down and tugged his gauntlets on. "Bardock?" She asked.
"For now, I`m going to go make sure that Totepo and Boukin are alright, you two stay here though," he ordered darkly. "I have a feeling you`ll be needed soon anyway..."
"Alright," both nodded in agreement. "I don`t think they`re alive though," Celipa stated. "Those two`re too stupid to know how to die, they`re alive," Toma retorted, though Bardock was already heading for the exit, despite Planthor and Malaka`s accompanying protests.
Halfway down the hall outside though, Bardock began to slow. Something was happening in the back of his mind, but this time he stayed firmly rooted to reality, slowly trudging to a stop in front of a specific window that allowed a view into the newborn section of the hospital complex. What he saw there both amazed and surprised him as a screaming infant lay inside of a Newbirth Pod, furiously shaking around with all of the determination of the greatest warriors to ever live, though he was merely a child.
The appearance of it all brought pause and a smile to Bardock`s battle scarred face.
"Kakarot, eh? You`ve got your mother`s skin, but everywhere else, you`re definately my kid," he thought with a bit of amusement. "You even have my tail and that fluke strand of hair that always sits in front of my forehead," he observed, suddenly feeling the edge of duty tug at his senses. "Well, I`ll see you later, Kakarot," he stated, turning to leave.
He never quite made it very far though.
Let us have time, let the sun shine
Let us beware the deadly sign
"Wait Bardock," a voice called, and Bardock found himself standing amid a fighting ring, surrounded by the sounds of battle. "You wanted psychic powers, didn`t you?"
"What is this?!" Bardock yelled, turning around and immediately dodging out of the way as a boy resembling himself, only so very much smaller and in an orange fighting outfit darted by. The child couldn`t have been older than four and yet he was doing battle with another boy with almost as much skill, if not more, than Bardock himself had ever possessed.
A flurry of movement, a strike to the chin of the first boy and the second, lavender haired and blue eyed in a royally familiar sort of way, went staggering back, just as the entire scene switched out again, leaving Bardock to stand drearily in the middle of a warzone.
Toma.
Toma was standing right in front of him.
And then he went down with a strange smile, blood spurting out of his chest as Celipa darted into view, a trio of space pods randomly shooting out of the facility that housed them, each heading in different directions.
"TOMA!!!"
The day is coming, armageddon's near
And he was standing back in the medcenter once again, feeling a little lightheaded but still on his feet. "There it was again..." He said to himself, looking up warily and catching sight of Kakarot`s wailing, which had promptly intensified twice over. "He sensed it," Bardock thought. How and why he knew, he didn`t understand, he just knew that the days-old baby had known.
Tapping his scouter though, Bardock felt sorely disappointed.
"Only an average powerlevel," he growled. "And here I thought you were special, like Raditz."
And with that, Bardock leapt back down the hall, leaving Kakarot alone with but one other child, who`s pod was marked only by one name: Brolli.
Inferno's coming, can we survive the blitzkrieg?
Hours had passed by as Totepo rose back up out of his crater again, gnashing his teeth in defiance and holding the detached skull of one of his attackers like a prized trophy, grinning mere seconds later. Panboukin was standing not too far off to the side, worn down and bloodier by far than his older comrade, but still fighting with every ounce of determination that could be found in a man who knew he was about to die anyway.
"Why?" Totepo asked, storming back up out of the crater with his expression suddenly shifting, from satisfied hatred to outright psychosis in under a second. "I just do what I`m told," Darwel replied, lunging forward at his brutalized foe. Totepo had taken a massive beating through the battle, his tail was gone, his armor shattered in no less than eight places, a massive gash across his back and blood streaking like tears from just beneath his eyes, yet he didn`t quit. The pain was like a hard drug, the fight was all he knew and he was going to show that as best he could.
In a violent display on the other end of the battle though, an equally injured Panboukin fought his attackers with less skill, but more power. He wasn`t fast enough to sneak through their defenses, but he was certainly brutish enough to smash straight through them, breaking the arm of one of the aliens and plunging his hand through the attacker`s chest, tearing out one of four hearts in the process.
"Don`t piss with us," he growled, promptly squeezing the organ to pulp in an instant before using his free hand to slap away a kick, breaking the other alien`s leg like a toothpick as a result. Boukin turned though, allowing his arm to slide further through the chest of the first attacker and using his blood soaked hand to grab the throat of the second, promptly slamming him down into the ground and stangling him then and there.
Totepo let out a scream of equal intensity, swinging around on Darwel`s horns and planting a knee into one shoulder to root the devil-like warrior into place, then callously breaking his neck. He didn`t stop there though, Totepo was known as a rugged, vicious warrior in battle and he enjoyed proving the point to the extreme, twisting his deceased foe`s head right off and spiking it into the ground like a football.
"Who knew we`d actually live this long, eh?" Panboukin asked with a dazed camaraderie to his voice, planting a foot into one of his foe`s bodies and then yanking his arm free with a disgusting slurping sound as blood gushed to fill the holes in the soldier`s chest. "Indeed," a new voice growled, a bit on the blubbery side.
"Dodoria," Totepo stated, glancing over his shoulder at the overweight warrior. "Frieza`s left hand man," Boukin replied. "I see my reputation precedes me," Dodoria replied with a smirk. "Only because you`re fatter than me," Panboukin exclaimed. At this though, the commander of the hit squad promptly stopped playing around, growling ferally and beginning to power up.
"Nice knowin` ya, Tepo," Panboukin stated. "You too, Boukin," Totepo replied. It would be over before they knew what hit them.
The blitzkrieg, the blitzkrieg
Twenty minutes after the battle had ended, Bardock crashed down. Two minutes after that, he was standing alone on the edge of the crater, glancing around with an uneasy look about him. The planet was obviously the sight of a recent battle, and a very violent one too, as demonstrated by the bodies that were scattered all over the place, but two, in specific, caught his eye.
"No," he thought, dashing forward with no delay. "Totepo! Panboukin!" He yelled, coming to a complete, dead halt in front of the two bodies, which lay next to one another in jumbled heaps. Totepo had been the one to die the quickest, that much was pretty apparent from the way that his forehead had been caved in, but Panboukin was still gasping for air, a fist-sized crater in his stomach, even through his body armor, showing the damage in a grotesque way.
"Who did this to you?! Who?!" Bardock demanded, kneeling down next to the overweight Saiyan on the ground. "Thirteen of `em... Heh," Boukin wheezed, grunting out a second later as the pain hit him again. "Got twelve of the bastards... Th`other w`s jus` too much," he stated, words slurring halfway through. "Don`t die on me, Boukin," Bardock ordered sternly, gently shaking his downed friend by the shoulders. "W`s Dodoria..." Panboukin chuckled lightly. "Said he was fatter `n me... Got away with it too..."
"Don`t die, damn you!" Bardock yelled, shaking Panboukin a bit harder now.
"Frieza`sold us`out... Ordered th` hit `n ev`rythin`," Boukin stated. "Frieza?!" Bardock demanded. "I thought he ordered this one!"
"W`s a setup. He`s gettin` scared, man... He`s afraid of us... Afraid of you... Afraid of what we might become," Boukin explained with his dying breaths. "He`s afraid of the old legends..."
"Boukin..."
"We held `em off as best we could... Knew we wouldn`t win but hey..." The overweight Saiyan laughed again, promptly dying on the spot without another word to be said, the life literally draining out of his body as his eyes rolled back, leaving Bardock to hold nothing but the corpse. "... I`m sorry, Boukin."
Seconds went by as a misty eyed Breh Bardock stood himself back up on shaky legs, turning away and setting his gaze onto the incoming speck of blue light in the far distance. Again he knelt, but this time there was nothing truly soft about it as Bardock reached into his armor and drew out a simple piece of white cloth he`d often used as a sweat rag, wiping it first over Totepo`s dead face, then again over that of Panboukin before standing up silently and wrapping it around his head as a bandana, soaked in the blood of fallen enemies.
"You should be proud of them," Dodoria exclaimed chidingly as Bardock turned around, initially staring downward at his feet. "I am," he exclaimed darkly, slowly raising his eyes off of the ground and looking up to set them both squarely on the murderer of his men. "They fought to the bitter end, and then they fought some more. They do me more pride than my own children, and for them, I`m going to stop you and your schemes or die trying," Bardock said with murder in his eyes, and an equally vicious tone in his voice, quietly reaching up and removing his scouter before pulping it to dust without another word.
"What lovely words, they`ll look even better on your tombstone."
Save us from fate, save us from hate
"We were Frieza`s arms and legs," Bardock growled.
Save ourselves before it's too late
"And he still betrayed us," Toma unknowingly finished, stepping coldly down the hallway with Celipa at his side. The visions were getting worse, more frequent and longer at the same time. How and why, neither knew exactly, but they did know that the visions inexorably linked Vegetasei`s apparent destruction with Frieza and his cohorts.
"This could become very ugly, Toma," Celipa warned, pausing briefly to smile over at Kakarot, who was still whining a plea to the fates above for some attention, care, anything. "Then we should relish the time we`ve got left to have some piece... Definately Bardock`s kid, eh?" He asked, glancing into the newborn room and trying to ignore the irate wails of the other child, who was not only louder, but was also practically having a nervous breakdown.
"Brolli," Celipa stated dimly, glancing at the name on the Newbirth Pod. "Paragus` kid."
"And speaking of Paragus," Toma stated, lightly elbowing Celipa in the side as Paragus walked into view, one of his eyes covered by a patch, cuts and bruises abounding all over his face and a large chunk of his armor missing. "What the hell happened to you?" Toma asked as the other warrior faltered under his own weight, collapsing against one of the walls and sliding down, leaving a trail of blood to stain the wall.
"P... Protect... Brolli..." Paragus ordered, just as several shadows rounded through the hallway. In a matter of seconds though, Paragus gasped for air, while a pair of large Saiyan men appeared behind him. Conveniently, several disturbing chinks and cracks could be heard as the two lifted him to his feet, the right hand of one and the left hand of the other both vanishing behind Brolli`s father as it happened.
"Where are you taking him?" Toma asked quietly. "King Vegeta has requested a private... Audience between Paragus and himself. That is all you need to know," the warriors stated, immediately backpedaling and dragging Paragus with them, even as the last bits of life bled out of him.
That was when a third Saiyan, easily identifiable as a royal Velg`larn - an assassin - by the marking across his right shoulder pad, and the small but sharp knife across his hip. This one said nothing, rudely pushing past Toma and Celipa and knocking over Doctor Planthor before keying in a universal access code and opening the door into the Newborn Chamber.
What followed next was absolutely sickening as he shrewdly locked the door behind him with another universal code before drawing his knife, still saying absolutely nothing while walking slowly, methodically toward a single, specific Newbirth Pod.
"Get him out of there! Now!" Planthor screeched, trying to work in every access code he knew to override the one the Velg`larn had used to no avail. "Shit," Celipa growled. "It`s already starting..."
"Not if I can help it," Toma replied, drawing back and arm and pausing only briefly as the assassin halted precisely in front of Brolli`s pod, grasping the infant by the tail. It caused Brolli`s cry to become even louder, automatically kicking on both Celipa and Toma`s scouters, which both summarily exploded in unison. It was then painfully obvious just why the attempted assassination was going to happen as the Velg`larn lifted Brolli out of the pod, upside down and screeching still.
Slowly, painfully slowly, the assassin drew back, holding the shocked infant upside down by the tail in front of himself before speaking several utterances to himself and making the first strike. It was almost perfectly calculated, and would have killed Brolli instantly with a strike into the heart, if not for the sudden shock to his hand and the equivelent shock of the glass shattering as Toma raged into the room, ignoring the cries of Planthor.
Celipa wasn`t too far behind but the damage was done by the time that Toma could deck the other Saiyan across the cheek, removing several teeth and causing the would-be murderer to miss his intended strike. Instead of the heart, the knife swept upward, gashing a cut across Brolli`s stomach and then stabbing into his side before the Velg`larn completely lost his grip on the weapon.
Celipa was a split second faster than gravity, diving beneath the screaming child and catching him before swooping up to her feet, even as Toma brutally pummeled the assassin.
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" Toma demanded, smashing his fist across the back of the assassin`s head and then kneeing him in the base of the tail before violently prying the appendage loose form the would-be murderer`s waist, bending it in far too tight a way for the other to do anything but lie there in agony. "The orders came from King Vegeta himself..." The Velg`larn stated with a wheeze.
"... What?"
"I`m not lying... King Vegeta ordered the execution because the child has the potential to surpass Prince Vegeta already..."
"I think he already hit that level as is," Celipa stated blandly, just as electronics and lights started blowing out from the onslaught of incoherent power that Brolli was putting out. This was technology designed specifically to handle power outbursts from warriors of all kinds and Brolli was demolishing it as a mere three day old infant, with an utterly incoherent burst of energy no less.
"Then Vegeta is an arrogant fool," Toma stated, promptly drawing back and striking the deathblow into the assassin`s neck. Planthor arrived just in time to watch the surviving Saiyan male rise up, shaking blood off of his hand while the dead assassin lay with his head decapitated from a stabbing chop.
"Celipa," Toma began, turning towards her with that a bit roguish smirk of his. "Yeah?" She asked. "Get Kakarot, launch him somewhere... You know the coordinates. Do the same for Brolli, and if you can find Raditz, get him along too."
"What about you?" Celipa asked. "I have work to do," Toma replied, promptly jumping out through the busted window as Celipa turned towards the sobbing Kakarot, lifting the boy up and holding him in an awkwardly tender sort of way. "Put them down..." Planthor requested more than ordered. "Get off the planet, Planthor. Same for Malaka, I have a funny feeling that the shit`s going to be hitting the fan very soon."
Come to our need, hear our plea
When Bardock surfaced again from the pile of bloodied debris around him, Dodoria was gone, as were the bodies of Totepo and Panboukin. He was hurt, badly. One shot had completely leveled him even with the boost of power that his recent recovery had afforded. It was no wonder why Dodoria was only Frieza`s left hand man, for all of his ignorance, power and lethality, he was bungling and never made absolutely certain a job was complete.
Exactly why Bardock knew that he was alone on the planet.
The sole survivor on a world once occupied by hundreds upon thousands, not including animal life.
"Damn you, Dodoria," he growled, staggering uneasily down through the trench of the overweight warrior`s only attack. It had been unbelievably one sided, Bardock hadn`t even gotten the chance to throw out one punch, kick or blast and Dodoria had flattened him with only a mid-powered shot. Humiliating, degrading and outright angering, the fire under Bardock had been lit because of it and now he wasn`t going to stop.
He couldn`t stop. Totepo and Panboukin needed to be avenged, and he had to warn the others - though Toma and Celipa were probably doing that by now.
Save ourselves before the Earth bleeds
"Frieza..." Bardock wheezed.
"I`m coming for you..."
"I gave you those powers, Bardock, so that you may witness the horror of your end... Just like we did!" A mocking voice yelled into his thoughts, just as another vision hit. Bardock let out a scream and fell to his knees, only to find that he was still standing an instant later. Knee deep in water. Blue water, in a pond.
Fishing rods held out in front of him, and as he looked up, he found himself confronted by no less than four people, sitting together as a family.
A man who bore an undoubtable resemblance to himself, dressed in a pair of plain, faded jeans and a sports jacket. A youth who looked around the age of four in Bejitan years, twelve by galactic standard, who held the same striking resemblance to him, only more weathered despite his age, a bit paler even than his father, wearing an orange pair of gi pants, a matching overshirt and a dark blue, long sleeved shirt beneath. Another man, Bardock could swear he saw a strikingly younger, less hardened Toma at first, he even had the same height and posture, but something was still uniquely different about him. He even wore different clothing, a pair of loose legged jeans and a long sleeved black shirt.
The last of the group was the one who struck Bardock the most. Obviously the youngest, she still held the fishing rod like a pro, though she obviously lacked the patience for it. If Bardock didn`t know better, he almost could`ve sworn that he was witnessing a miniature version of Celipa, wearing a sweater and a pair of black pants.
And then the vision completely twisted at one hundred and eighty degrees. Bardock found himself standing straight on the side of a Saucer-class War Transport. It was turning slightly, but in the distance he could instantly see it.
Planet Vegeta.
"Just like we did..."
The day is dawning, the time is near
With a dry coughing fit, Bardock found himself sitting in his pod a few seconds later. The engines were already prepped, mandatory home course, just like it always was when he was brutalized in a mission and had to go straight home. Today though, as the thruster units kicked in, Bardock knew he wouldn`t just be rushing home, and it wouldn`t be to heal up.
Aliens calling, can we survive the blitzkrieg?
"Just..."
"I`ve got to stop him..." He muttered to himself deliriously, blood trailing down into one of his eyes for several seconds before a tired hand wiped it away.
"Like..."
"I`m the only one who can..."
"We did..."
As the space pod raced into the eternal night of space, a foul, taunting voice trailed it, relentlessly mocking the horrors of the pod`s lone occupant.
