The bandits he had dealt with were not alone. The roads leading to Red Ribbon territory were clogged with refuges and deserters.
It was a pathetic mass of hopeless dirty worthless civvies to be sure. By the looks of it Red in his absence had order a general retaliation due to Gero and Green's capture. No one by the looks of had yet used their nuclear arsenal but still that could happen at any time.
From what Kakarrot had gathered from the starving masses was that, Red in addition to the brilliance of deploying his army in mass across the globe to hunt the dragon balls was now on the attack.
Striking at the allied nations of the Royal army without backup and without a goal beyond kill, burn and repeat as needed.
It would be hilarious except for one thing. This was Kakarrot future army. This was Kakarrot's planet that Grandpa had promised him. That Red was now playing a game of nuclear chicken with it. If the bombs were to drop, he could kiss revenge and conquest goodbye. It would all be over, and he knew it.
Kakarrot finally ran into the fighting between the RRA and the Royal's.
RRA's forward positions around the outskirts of Ginger town which the Royal's had. Ginger town had in very short order had been decimated. Shell into rubble by his fellow Ribbons and by the Royal army defending it, but they hadn't taking yet, and it was easy to see why.
From an overlook he could see it all. The Ribbons were on their own on a hill overlooking the city to shell it but outnumber possible three to one and by the looks of it were about to be encircled. It was stupid and it must have looked a lot stupider to anyone who had gone to school and done their homework for this sort of thing.
Kakarrot surveying the battlefield from a treetop "Well it looks like our dear leader must have lost his shit to have ordered this batshit move."
Behind him he could hear a Royal patrol coming towards him, but it mattered little to him as from his viewing spot on a tree he was well out of sight of the soldiers. With ease he slipped passed the Royal's and around the city and made it to the hill.
The Ribbon soldiers were as easy to sneak by as the Royals but that wasn't going to be how he was going to play it. A machine gun nest was guarding one of the approaches to the hill manned by two stupid familiar looking soldiers.
Nilla and Purp something the two had a habit of stumbling onto important events and begin spared by dumb luck. Vanilla always looked like he had a stick up his ass and Purp was always jovial. Nilla had a well smashed in face. Purp had the look of a brute. Nilla was married and had a bunch of kid. Purp was always either paying for sex or not being picky on the issue of consent.
The two made an interesting odd couple that happened to be quite luck, figures that they would be the ones he would run into after most likely being declared dead.
Purp was telling by the sounds of it a farfetched story to Nilla who was trying to ignore him when Kakarrot intentionally broke a twig with his foot to gain the men's attention. As fast as they could move, they were point a long end of a machine gun at him only to point it away just as quickly upon seeing who it was.
Like most of the army Kakarrot had left a terrifying impression on these men. They had seen him eat and seen him turn Oozaru. They had seen bullets bounce of him and what happening when Gero's monkey boy got angry. They looked at him with blue faces, open mouths and wide eyes.
Kakarrot enjoying the appropriate response from the soldier "What's a matter Sergeant Major Nilla and Private Purp? You look as though you have seen a ghost?" The with lightning speed the soldiers practically carried Kakarrot to their commander Colonel Grey.
Grey was never a frail man by Kakarrot recollection. Sure, his grey hair made him look older than he really was, but he had muscles had a glimmer of youth and brilliant in his greyish eyes.
This was not this man. Copper's finest had been run ragged by this predicament and it was showing on him. He was thinner, weak looking, with dull eyes and a slumped back. He had a bandage on his leg that suggested that he was hit.
The camp was like the man dying looking. The mud was deep the signs of shelling everywhere and it all had the sickly-sweet smell of death in the air. Along with the smell of gunpowder and festering wounds from the wounded. It was damp all of it was strong enough for a human, never mind a Saiyan but it didn't bother him at all in the least.
Instead it was a liberating concoction of odors. The odors all put him in his element, calming and reliving. A breath of fresh air to remind him of his joys and loves of fighting, Grandpa, Chi-Chi, Yurin and Tanmen in that order.
Grey's eyes sparked upon seeing Kakarrot even smiled which was an odd thing for him to do but still he was being acknowledged which was good enough. Grey signal for him to join him to his tent were there was a small amount of food (the key word being small). It was an MRE (meal ready to eat) it tasted terrible to him. The thing was beyond processed. It was turkey maybe hard to tell and gravy. But what little Grey had Kakarrot ate up. It had been almost an hour or so since his last meal and a snack was in order at least it was warm.
While Kakarrot ate Grey started in "My boy you don't know how happy I am to see you. We all assumed the worst after the word of Gero and Green's capture." Kakarrot made a light hissing noise as a response to Grey. "Well anyways, Red ordered us to retaliate in response to their capture. Cooper was practically sacked when he attempted to dissuade the Supreme Commander and Red order me here. Trying to take a city with a garrison five times my size and without any reinforcements, provisions or hope of being relieved. It's madness all of it. I can't leave there and there is no way to stay. It's death by them or death by us."
Kakarrot rolling his eyes as what was going on. The Colonel couldn't have been more transparent. He wanted him to take the city for him. It was annoying to say the least. He was supposed to be getting back to Headquarters, saving grandpa and planning some revenge not taking some worthless city that Red wanted.
Kakarrot eyes then turned the tent flaps were open still. The humid spring air was coming in from all the rain that this place must receive. He looked to see the downtrodden faces of the army. They were hopeless, beaten, lost and afraid not of him but of the Royal's.
A touch of fury hit the teen. This army was what Grandpa had promised him. A loyal horde of hailing troops that were supposed be their when he crowned himself lord of this pathetic world. It was just sickening.
Kakarrot eyes shot back to the still gapping Grey who was going on and on about this and that problem he was having.
Kakarrot with a confident air to him shouted "I take the damn city if you'll shut up!" He waited a second and those stars in Grey's eyes grew brighter. "But first I'm going to address your men and then they are going to join me in the attack."
Grey nodded "Sure whatever you want."
The troops were assembled in good order. Kakarrot due to his still small size was forced on a table to raise himself higher than them. Grudging thinking to himself he sorted of understood why Red was determined to make himself look taller in statue and picture form. This was quite annoying, but the men had to see him above them.
The men were all curious about what was happening which made them all look a lot less like a group of beaten dogs all muddy and cut up. Their eyes on him gave him a spark of excitement not unlike the feeling before a fight or a good meal seeing what he had done to Tanmen or that fire in Yurin or Chi-Chi's eyes. It was glorious to say the least to him.
Kakarrot in the deepest voice he could muster "Men you have been abandoned." They gasped. "It's true some man with a crappy map sent you out here to die without possible knowing or caring."
Grey looked at him with a look of angry fear to which Kakarrot didn't bother responding to. He continued "I think you need to be told that because I don't lie to my people. Now that might discourage you all but I'm about to give you a reason why it shouldn't. You might have all heard of me. Might have heard some tall tales, might believe them, might not but I'm here to tell you that their all true."
He gave it a pause to let it sink in. "Now I eat people, bitches. Bullet bounce off me. I can turn into a giant monkey. I'm from space and the last of my kind. I can eat my body weight in a single meal. I've been lit on fire and not burned. I can crush a man skull with my pinky finger and up until a few days ago I had a tail. Now I'll tell you I enjoy killing. It's a big hobby of mine and I'm fucking good at it. As I have killed a fuck ton of people you see.
Another slight pause to let that all sink in. "Now you might be wondering why in the fuck I would be telling you all of this. Well boy's it's really very simple actually because it's no secret and it's all about to come in real handy for all of you. We're going to take Gingertown today. Why you might ask? Who gives a fuck! How?" His finger pointed to his face.
"Yours truly because you might have not all realized it when you woke up this morning but you all just won the Kami-YunoGasai-DiamandaHagan-damn lottery, my supremely badass brothers in arms because as I just described to you all. I'm one bullet proof, fucked up in the head, people eating, space alien that can kill a man like it was nothing and I with all my fucked up weird ass superpowers have decided to save you all. By taking this city and slaughter all of those bitches!" There were a few yells of "hell yah" and such. He now screamed out "Now who's going with me to take this fucking city!"
The soldiers gave out a loud yell of 'Fuck yeah!' and loud guttural howls. Their fists were up, and guns were in the air. They were an excited to the point of foaming at the mouth. Kakarrot's words having had a clear effect on them.
Grey had his men moved down the hill known as 946 by the Ribbon maps. Behind the trees near the Royal lines they waited. A no man's land had formed from the shelling and fighting. The Royal trenches had held the line against three different attack by the Ribbons. The smashed buildings had made great sniper nests. The unburied bodies had become host to many a black fly and worms.
The air was heavy with the stench of the dead as Kakarrot came into view to the Royal soldiers. The sky had darkened cloud had flooded into the area. The Royal's restrained themselves from firing. Instead were quite worried about this strange palm haired boy that had just walked into a warzone. A few calls rang out 'To get out of there' 'This is no place for you'.
Kakarrot to these calls raised his hand and in icy cool confidence loudly spoke "It is not a surprise that many of you don't know me. I must have been just a rumor and a ghost to you men and women. But as of right now I'm am no rumor no ghost. My name is Kakarrot Gero and I have come here to kick ass and chew bubblegum and I'm all out of bubblegum."
His hand cup glowed very quickly then a burst of ki shot out of it towards the men in the trenches. An explosion rocked the soft ground as the rain came down in buckets. Despite their shock the Royal's were quick to open up on Kakarrot. Their bullets, however, were practically bouncing off the boy as Kakarrot found more targets to take out.
As more explosions rocked the land the rest out the Ribbons came charging out of their positions behind the trees, hollering and screaming in a bloodlust. The sounds of the world all seemed to give way to the sounds of war.
Block by block the city was cleared with the Royals eventually seeing the futility at throwing down their weapons. Not that Kakarrot accepted their surrenders mind you, he did indeed want to get the taste of the MRE's out of his mouth.
The battle of Gingertown was over before it began with Kakarrot at their head the Ribbons were invincible. No position was secure, and no spot well defended enough. In under a two-hour period the city fell. Upon their victory Kakarrot took a perch from the last remaining skyscraper overlooking the city so that he could survey the land. He had taken all of it and it was his not Red's, not Royal not even Grandpa's, his and his alone.
Nothing could take this away he thought. Not the loss the Roshi, Tien betrayal, Chi-Chi getting a glimpse of reality or even with the broken glass crunching under his feet, not the rain pouring down or the thunder and lightning. The soldiers had earlier cheered him and had lifted him above them. It had all been all he had wanted and expected. And as a reward he was allowing all they wanted and expected. The sound of the crying and the begging women could be heard from even this height.
Into this festive mood that the Kakarrot was in stepped Grey. The man had been rejuvenated by this victory still thin, but he was practically glowing. The man had been at one point as scared of him as his master was of him but now, now Kakarrot had saved his ass and he knew it. The man even heiled him before starting to talk.
Grey speaking with the respect in his voice that he used for Red and Copper "My Lord I have finally reestablished contact with Headquarters thanks to the enemy's equipment. The Supreme Commander wished to congratulate me on my victory, however, I believe you deserved that thanks."
Your welcome and may I add that I'm in favor of that 'My Lord' part that you added at the beginning. I think it will be my new way of being greeted."
"My pleasure my lord but there was more. Red wants you home. Apparently are troubles here are nothing compared to what's been happening across the globe. All of dear leaders plans seem to all be falling apart."
"Not surprising when we should be taking the fighting to the Royals, when instead we're looking for magic balls. What do you make of all of this Grey?"
Grey's eyes wandered "That's a loaded question."
Kakarrot rolled his eyes and asked, "You see anyone else around?"
Grey in a sigh "Very well my thoughts are simple enough. I was basic commanded to die here to teach Copper a lesson about speaking his mind. I was supposed to lose this battle and by doing so disgrace my general. A terrible wasting of resources because Red was petty. All my men nearly died on that account. It's kind of feels weird calling you 'my lord' but you saved me and my men. You almost single handedly won this fight. Copper might not yet see your value, but I do. You speak beyond your years. The doc's monster boy is not just some super weapon, you might just be a leader, our leader."
"Glad you're finally seeing things my way. Do you know where my Grandpa is being kept?"
"No but Headquarters probably has an idea."
"So, I guess all road lead back to Headquarters."
Grey nodded in agreement "I guess so. I'll keep Gingertown for you."
"Good and I'll try talking some sense into Red. More than likely though I'm just going to make him angry."
"Don't. He's had his chance. After this crisis is over, I think it's time for a change in management. Best not lead on that you have grown as tired of this crap as the rest of us." Kakarrot nodded in agreement. "With him gone it will be a time for a new army a better and stronger army the true masters of this world as we should have always been. I can't wait for it"
"Wait for it no longer. For as the RRA wanes the KRA rises." He smirked. "I think my dear Colonel that his has been a very productive meeting."
"Yes, I think it has my Lord."
"The world will be mine." As he spoke, he could hear the sounds of an approaching plane readying to land and take him to the only real home he even knew. "Just some try and stop me."
Let's see who tries and stops him I bet it will be a girl in orange and blue with a cloud and a stick.