A loud, piercing scream echoed over the mountain. Birds burst through the trees in flight. There was a loud thud, then more screaming.
"You come back here! I said come back right now!" A black-haired little girl with an ax in her hand and murder in her eyes marched through the halls of the Ox King's castle.
"Chi Chi!" The man himself came running towards her. "What happened? Who screamed? Is everything alright?"
"Everything is not alright!" the little girl stomped her foot. "Those kids are awful Daddy! That girl called me a booger brain, and the boy kicked me!" She lifted her leg to show him the bruise Lapis had left.
"Chi Chi," the Ox King cajoled, "Lapis and Lazuli are our guests, and their big brother has just left on a very dangerous mission. They're probably acting up because they're worried about him."
"I'm worried about Yamcha," Chi Chi shot back, "but I behave!"
Her father sighed. Chi Chi had always been spoiled. The Ox King had never been much on discipline, and after her mother died of the sickness, he couldn't bring himself to deny Chi Chi anything her heart desired. As a result, Chi Chi's idea of "good behavior" consisted of keeping her voice down and not throwing a tantrum over eating her vegetables.
Just as Ox King was about to ask her to be the bigger person, Lapis peeked out of a doorway and waggled his eyebrows at her. "Hey booger brain! Lay off the cakes, your tummy looks like you're having a baby!"
He barely managed to close the door before Chi Chi's ax hit it. She ran to the door, pulled the ax out of the wood, and flew into the room. But Lapis and Lazuli were already climbing out the window. Chi Chi put the ax between her teeth and followed, undeterred. Revenge would be hers.
It went like this: First, you were searched for any prohibited items. Pretty much everything was prohibited – food, clothing, jewelry, tokens of any sort. This always went quickly because no one ever brought anything with them, they all knew better. Then their uniforms were taken and they showered. This was a new thing, instituted after the sickness spread and some people suggested that it was a virus picked up in space. Then they put on their cleaned uniforms and issued a new piece of armor. The style had changed recently – now it included leg pads that covered the thighs and extended over the crotch.
Scouters were passed around along with the armor. Finally, squad leaders lined up to get their first mission briefs.
This was the line were Raditz found himself. A few people stood between him and his father, but Raditz made a point not to try to make eye contact with him. On his very first mission, Bardock had taken Raditz aside and told him that as long as they were on duty, they were not father and son. Bardock was not there to guard him or train him or even socialize with him. They were not even colleagues. Bardock outranked him, and Raditz had better not forget that.
Of course, it was easy for Bardock to say. No one ever called him "Raditz's father." No one ever asked him to introduce them to Raditz. No one was ever visibly disappointed when he didn't live up to his son's reputation.
Meanwhile, Yamcha was breaking in his armor. "You know, this thing is weirdly comfortable." He stretched right and left, and then squatted a few times.
Behind him, someone giggled. Two Saiyan women were openly ogling him. One waved.
Yamcha blushed and straightened up. Tien scowled at him. Jasper seemed oblivious.
"Alright," Raditz was back. "We're going to be heading out in a couple of hours-"
"Hours?" Yamcha squeaked.
"Yeah." Raditz was too busy examining his brief, making sure every detail was burned into his brain, to notice Yamcha's escalating panic. He hadn't felt so unprepared for anything since his very first mission. "We have just enough time to settle into quarters before we have to go. We should probably do some light stretching," he said, finally looking up. "We're going to be in a joint ship this time, but it'll still be a tight fit. I don't want you cramping on me from the get-go."
"There are living quarters in this place?" Tien asked skeptically. The ship they were on didn't seem big enough.
"No. This is just a, you know, Transit Post. A place to pick up uniforms and stuff." He gestured vaguely. "We're actually gonna take another ship out to the main big ship. It's called the Motherlode. Or we call it that, anyway."
"We're taking another flight? I'm already feeling sick," Yamcha complained.
Raditz glared at him. "Stop whining. It's a short trip, okay? We'll be there in less than an hour probably." He moved to leave. "Just stay close to me, and remember what I told you about this place."
Jasper immediately began to follow Raditz. Tien and Yamcha exchanged reluctant looks, but hesitantly followed as well.
They were officially members of the Galactic Frieza Army.
It was raining when they arrived on the planet. Raditz was still obsessively looking over his mission brief.
A sparsely populated planet. Inhabitants with power levels ranging from 400 to 800. Easy prey, but the gravity here was much higher than they were used to, making flying all but impossible. That was a big disadvantage for them – the denizens of this planet could all fly.
"There are many mountains here." Jasper was leaning over him, cold blue eyes scanning the brief. "We can use them for cover. And the rain will make it harder for them to see us."
"Right," Raditz nodded. "Good idea." He scanned the landscape carefully. "Let's take a minute to get used to the gravity. Then we'll split up. I'll take Yamcha and we'll go behind those mountains to the east. You," he turned to Jasper, "go with Tien north. That's where the most people are. If you run into problems use the communicator. We'll regroup here in two hours. The scouters have timers." He demonstrated on his own, and the boys set theirs too.
"Wait, what are we supposed to do here?" Yamcha asked.
Raditz stared at him. "Kill every living thing you come across. Frieza wants this planet dead."
"Bu-but why?"
Raditz shrugged. "That's for him to know. We don't ask questions, we follow orders." He straightened up and examined his troops, such as they were. "Right. Move out."
"We must be strategic." Jasper and Tien were curled up in a narrow ditch. Several miles away there was a large town, their first target. "We are outnumbered, and we do not have the advantage of high ground. So we must make low ground our advantage."
Tien nodded. He was trying to seem tough and like he knew what he was doing, but in truth he was terrified. How could two people fight an entire city, and to the death no less? And how the hell did you make low ground an advantage?
"Follow me." Jasper began to crawl down the ditch, Tien on his heels. Mud squelched between their fingers as rain pounded down on their heads. It was amazing, Tien thought. Vegeta had been in drought for years now, but even in its best years it never saw so much rain. That's what happened when you had two suns.
Where the ditch ended, Jasper stuck his head up. There had a clear view of the town and were now much closer.
Perfect.
"On my count," he said. "We'll blast the town, but close to the ground. Do you see the road?" Tien nodded. "Aim for that. The energy should make a groove in the earth."
"Mud," Tien corrected. He was soaked.
"Yes." Jasper turned to look at him, and his blue eyes suddenly seemed much warmer. "Are you ready?"
Tien nodded again. He was ready as one could ever be to commit mass murder.
"1." Together, they got into position. Tien lowered his aim in line with Jasper. "2." The ki began to form. "3."
The blasts flew through the mud, splattering it everywhere, just as Jasper wanted. One blast, Tien's, hit the bottom floor of a building on the edge of town. Jasper's hit the road.
Screams went up. The earth below them was trembling with the force of impact.
"Hurry!" Jasper yelled over the noise – he was running towards the town, blasting the base of buildings in rapid succession. "We must act quickly while we have the advantage!"
Tien rushed after him.
"Go the other way!" Jasper yelled.
Turning, slipping in the mud, desperately trying to keep his balance as Jasper's blasts shook the earth. He hardly knew what he was doing anymore, there was barely time to think. He couldn't even see straight from the light of his own blasts.
"Tienshinhan!" Jasper was in his ear – the communicator. "Where are you?"
"Uh-,"
"They're flying away! Stop them! Get low and blast them."
Blindly, Tien followed his orders. It wasn't hard to hide in all this mud, he was already covered in it.
He had just enough time to marvel that any creature could fly in an atmosphere where he was just about keeping his balance before aiming to stop those creatures escape. Who he hit, or if he hit anyone at all, he couldn't tell. Too much screaming, too much noise, too much mud. Mud everywhere, the taste of it in his mouth, worms and other disgusting things crawling over his bare arms – he should have asked for the leotard with full sleeves. At least he was more covered than Raditz.
Speaking of Raditz, he and Yamcha were currently running their own covert operation. Raditz was used to taking the high ground, so he and Yamcha had, with great difficulty, climbed one of the mountains near a large city, just high enough so they could aim at it from above. It had been going rather well until a group of people had flown up from the city to try to blast out their assailants.
A rock hit Yamcha on the head as blasts hit them from on high. At least it wasn't raining.
"Alright, this is ridiculous," Raditz hissed. "Listen, you distract them. I'll go around and hit them from behind."
"Distract them? How?"
But Raditz was already gone.
Yamcha whimpered quietly. He was going to die here. Die on this miserable planet for a reason he didn't even know. What a terrible way to go. Would Raditz even bother bringing his body back to Vegeta, back to Fire Mountain so he could be buried next to his parents? Probably not. No, he would rot here, abandoned, forgotten…
Okay, deep breaths Yamcha, he thought to himself. Pull yourself together. You are not going to die. Just do what Raditz said. Distraction. Distraction.
Maybe if he blasted the mountain across from them, they would think the attacks were coming from there?
No, they would see the blast. It would just tell them exactly where he was. He had to get them to, oh Gods, he had to get them to go lower, so Raditz could get in a better position to attack.
Lower. Closer to him.
Alright. There was nothing for it.
"Hey!" He stuck his head out and screamed at his attackers. He blasted them, then made a run downwards.
They were right on his tail, but fortunately for Yamcha he had grown up on a mountain. He was surefooted and fast, anticipating grooves and ridges he could grab onto and duck behind. He couldn't outrun people who were flying, but with any luck Raditz would –
One. Two. Three. He could hear them hit their targets. One body landed at his feet.
Raditz was clinging precariously to the side of the mountain, blasting Yamcha's chasers with one hand. There was only one left now. He turned around to face Raditz, but they had the element of surprise – Raditz's attack hit him square in the chest even as Yamcha's caught the back of his head.
Raditz switched on his communicator. "Climb down." He gestured, and Yamcha followed his lead.
They met at the base.
"Oh gods," Yamcha was practically in tears. "That was terrible! I thought I was gonna die –,"
"Timer's going off," Raditz interrupted. "We have to head to the ship."
They'd barely gotten two miles away when the ground started to tremble underneath them.
"What's going on?" Yamcha yelled.
"It's okay! This happens sometimes, from the fighting. Just keep mov-,"
The ground caved.
They both screamed in shock and panic. Raditz was barely able to grab onto the edge; Yamcha was hanging onto him by his boots, now openly weeping.
Raditz kicked him. "Shut up!"
"Do you see how deep this is?!" Yamcha screeched.
Raditz looked down.
Oh. Shit.
Somehow, a giant canyon had formed right underneath them. That would be a nasty fall.
Suddenly Yamcha seemed much heavier than before. And this damn gravity wasn't helping.
"Don't let go!" Raditz called down.
"Oh I'm not planning to!"
He gripped the edge harder, pushing down against his palms in an attempt to lift them both up. But no, he need his feet to get a grip on the canyon wall, and that wasn't going to happen with Yamcha clinging to him.
"Yamcha! Push up!"
"What?!"
"Use your feet and push up!"
He could feel him trying, but Yamcha was holding onto him too tightly to create any real upward momentum.
Just as he was beginning to seriously consider kicking Yamcha off him and saving himself, a pair of strong but very muddy hands grabbed him by the armpits and began pulling them up.
It was Tien, thank the gods, lying on his stomach in the dirt, Jasper straddling him from behind to support his shoulders and pull with him. When Raditz was halfway up, he got off Tien and bent down to pull up Yamcha.
Panting. Raditz on his back, deep breaths. Yamcha on his hands and knees, mumbling silent prayers. Jasper rubbed his back like a parent with his child.
"Is that it? Are we done?" Tien asked.
Raditz sat up slowly and shook his head. "We still have to go south."
"Oh no," Yamcha moaned.
Raditz picked himself up. "I think," he breathed heavily, "we should stay together this time."
Tien was not happy. He was still covered in mud, because apparently, squad captains got first turn at the showers. Not only that, Yamcha was insisting that he shower last, because he would get mud everywhere and then the shower wouldn't be clean for him and Jasper.
"It's just common sense! But I guess you don't have any of that!"
"I'm not sitting around like this!" Tien gestured wildly at himself, dried mud falling off him in chunks.
"You are such a selfish jerk!"
"I'm selfish?! Look at me!"
"Enough." Jasper's voice was quiet but commanding. He was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall. "Tien will shower first, but he will clean the shower for us."
"Like hell he will! And just why exactly should we listen to you?" Yamcha shot back.
"Yeah," Tien's three eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Just what's your deal anyway? Back on the mission, you acted like you were, like a war general or something. What was that?"
"Wait, what?"
"You shoulda seen him," Tien said to Yamcha. "It was like-," he turned to look at Jasper, "like he'd done this before."
"Really?" Yamcha too was looking at Jasper curiously.
They both stared at him.
"We are a unit," Jasper said finally. "There are no secrets in a unit, and no arguments." He looked at them pointedly. "The truth is that I have done this before. With the Red Ribbon Army."
Yamcha practically fell over stuttering. "The-the Red-Red Ribbon, oh gods-,"
"Wow," Tien whispered. "That's-wow. That's amazing."
"Amazing!" Yamcha screeched. "Are you insane? Do you have any idea," he lowered his voice, "what Raditz will do to us if he finds out?"
"Oh fuck him," Tien snapped. "Fuck them all. These Saiyans think they own us. He drags us out to this fucking place, treats us like slaves-,"
"And the Red Ribbon Army was so great?" Yamcha retorted. "I don't know what you did," he turned to Jasper, "but the Red Ribbon Army treated us worse than the Saiyans ever did. They took over our castle, tied up the Ox King, threw us all in the dungeons. I was four years old, a baby. If it weren't for the Saiyans in Ter-Kader coming up to save us we'd still be rotting in there."
"You're an idiot if you think the Saiyans were trying to save you. They just don't want humans to have power. They don't give a shit about any of us."
"You are both right," Jasper interrupted. "The Saiyans only care for power and for each other. What happens to us, how we live, they don't care about any of that. But the Red Ribbon Army was not better. Our leaders were also obsessed with power, and they were willing to sacrifice anyone and anything to get it. That is why I left."
It was at this moment that Raditz walked out of the shower.
He was toweling off his hair, which was a bit of a process. You had to start from the bottom, wringing out the excess water, then drying out the rest of it with a different, clean, dry towel.
He sat down next to Jasper on the edge of his bed to begin the process.
"What is it?" He looked over the three of them. "Why'd you stop talking?"
Tien was about to say something but Jasper beat him to it. "I have something I must tell you."
"Jasper-,"
"I was once a member of the Red Ribbon Army."
Raditz froze. "What?"
"Ha ha ha!" Yamcha laughed nervously and rushed over to Jasper's side. "What a joker this guy is, huh?" He slapped Jasper on the back and laughed again.
"It's not a joke."
"Jasper! Shut up!" Tien hissed.
"What," Raditz said quietly, lowering the towel to the bed, "are you talking about?"
"I was once a member of the Red Ribbon Army," Jasper repeated. "I left them a long time ago."
"For gods' sakes-,"
"You must listen," Jasper insisted. "After the Army was defeated 15 years ago, some of its members escaped and went underground. I was one of those people.
"After the defeat, what was left of our leadership focused all its energies on making our soldiers stronger than Saiyans. There was a man, Dr. Gero. He thought he could make us stronger by inserting…technological enhancements…into us. They were supposed to be change the way we process energy, to make us faster, stronger, slow the aging process. All these things.
"I volunteered to be part of this experiment," he turned to Tien and Yamcha, who were standing frozen. "That is why I speak in this voice. The things he did to me, they changed how I talk, how I see and hear.
"It was…difficult. There were many times when I wished to stop, but…I had agreed. But then," he stopped, his eyes unfocused, looking as though at something distant. "Then, he brought two children."
"Lapis and Lazuli?" Yamcha asked.
"Yes. He said that he could not make me strong enough. I was too old, but a child would grow with these enhancements, they would be stronger. He," he stopped again. "It was a terrible thing to watch. I could not," his eyes burned with the memory, and his fists clenched against the thin mattress. "I am a man. I made a choice. But these were children, children he stole," his breath caught.
"I took the children and blew up his lab. There were no survivors. I went back the next day and checked. Then I took the children to the farthest place I could find."
There was a long, long silence. Then-
"Do you understand," Raditz said quietly, "what you're telling me? You realize that if anyone finds out about this, you'll be tried for treason and killed?"
"Yes," Jasper said. "If you want to turn me in, I will go quietly."
Raditz took a deep breath. "Oh gods. Oh gods." He put his hands over his still wet head. "Why me?"
No one replied.
"Alright. Alright. No one, and I mean no one," Raditz said, "talks about this to anyone else. Not your parents, not your girlfriends, not the Ox King, no one. If anyone finds out about this, we will all be tried for aiding a known traitor. This conversation never happened. Do you understand?"
They nodded.
"Alright. Go take shower," Raditz gestured toward Jasper.
"But I need to-,"
"Shut up Tien! I don't want to hear it! I've heard enough for one day." He stood up and pointed at Jasper. "You, take a shower. I am going to my room, and I don't want to hear anything from any of you until you're ready to go eat." He was panting, face red with a jumble of emotions. He opened his mouth to say something, but stomped off instead.
He couldn't remember having a worse mission.
A/N: I wanted to check in with Goku in this chapter, but there wasn't even enough room to get all of Raditz's first mission in! We'll be visiting them again next chapter, but hopefully Goku will make an appearance too. Thanks for reading!