"Leave this to me, Hatska," he said, stretching and bouncing in place. He hadn't been this excited for a fight in a long time. Hatska looked at him skeptically.
"Are you sure?" the little green Yardratian asked.
Raditz snorted. "What choice do we have?" Hatska's expression soured, and Raditz laughed. "Don't worry! That boost from last time gave me the edge I need. This time will go differently, I promise."
"You know we put our trust in you," Hatska said, his normally jolly face solemn. "But we are also fond of you, Raditz. Please, take care of yourself."
Sobering a little, Raditz gave his friend a nod, and then, placing two fingers to his forehead, he disappeared.
Leaving his mother on Earth, knowing his only option to keep Vegeta away from her was to run away himself, had been the hardest thing Raditz had ever done. Very quickly, however, he had come up short against the sobering truth that a lone Saiyan wandering the galaxy without the protection of either his companions' fists or Frieza's name was a target too juicy to pass up. Bounty hunters, vengeance-seekers, glory-hounds- all wanted a piece of him, and Raditz soon found that he had better go into civilization in disguise or not at all.
For a while he drifted, aimless, nowhere to go and all the time to get there. His mother's face haunted him those weeks. She had given him a look of such forgiveness that it made his skin itch just to think of it. Raditz was sure she hadn't guessed half the things he'd done, but he was equally sure that if she had, she'd have forgiven him of them too. It was unbearable.
But, after weeks spent solo and brooding, Raditz had had an epiphany. There was no changing the past. And there was no changing Gine, who, despite being weak, could be just as stubborn as any other Saiyan. She'd keep forgiving him, over and over, her heart breaking every time. So if he wanted to see her again, see her look at him with something other than that blasted understanding in her eyes, then he had to do something that would change the way she looked at him. He had to make her proud of him instead.
Raditz had sat bolt upright in his pod, banging his head on the ceiling.
"That's it! Genius!"
He just had to make up for everything he'd ever done…
Here he hit a snag, but it was short lived. He could not undo years spent destroying planets and tormenting the weak, but he could get out there and do the opposite of that, and if he did that enough times, surely that would balance things out and she could stop forgiving him, right?
Full of piss and vinegar, Raditz had set out to conquer the galaxy in the name of freedom.
And hit another snag.
Since he was supposed to be dead, he couldn't exactly show up on a planet scheduled for purging and save it. Anyway, even if he managed to fight off the Frieza soldiers by himself (not a certain prospect, he was sad to say), they'd just send more. Mother's sad, forgiving eyes notwithstanding, directly defying Frieza wasn't on the table.
But what other threats were out there? How did one go about saving the galaxy when one was usually the thing the galaxy needed saving from?
His first breakthrough had come while he was drinking in a seedy bar outside the jurisdiction of both Frieza and the Galactic Patrol. Some weakling had lost a bet or won a bet or something and was getting hassled by a few low-lifes that Raditz, only a month before, would have been glad to call drinking buddies. Now, looking at the world with the eyes of a freedom-fighter, he could see that these blockheads were just taking out their frustrations with life on someone who couldn't fight back.
Raditz had downed the last of his drink, slammed it on the counter, and started a bar fight.
That hadn't exactly been his intention, though starting bar fights was such a habit he was hardly surprised when it happened. But the weakling in question had come out of it with only a few bruises and a hearty sense of gratitude for Raditz. Even better, he'd presented Raditz with his first problem to solve.
The man's wife and children were being held for ransom, blah blah blah: the upshot was, there was a sneaky, evil worm out there for Raditz to get rid of, and he did so with gusto. He even freed the worm's other prisoners while he was at it, many of whom also had problems for Raditz to solve. It had taken him several months to sort out everyone's messes, but eventually he had, the galaxy smelling slightly better at the end of it.
That had been the beginning. After a while people's gratitude had started adding up, and he'd been able to replace his broken scouter, which had allowed him to find even more people to help.
It was… exhilarating, this feeling. Fighting and helping people? He hadn't known you could do that! Granted, it took a while for some people to warm up to him. He was still a Saiyan, after all. Some of them never got around to being grateful, and that… stung, a little. Still, he wasn't doing this for them. He was doing this for mother. She was going to be so proud.
Then his big break: Yardrat. A mystical place where they had discovered the secret of instantaneous travel. Put one in your spaceship and you could go anywhere in the blink of an eye, or so the story went. Raditz's freedom-fighting nose had smelled trouble, and he'd gotten there before a gang of treasure-hunters, fending them off and gaining himself a new home in the process.
He had never intended to stay in one place for so long. He had always had a taste for travel, and he knew now he always would. But Yardrat had been… welcoming, in a way no other place ever had. Even his most grateful (er, clients wasn't the right word) benefactees, had always expected him to leave after he was done saving them. But the Yardratians, with their strange, squishy bodies and simple faces, had been almost aggressive in their kindness. He would stay and learn their secrets, and be fed and clothed and housed, and they wouldn't hear a word said otherwise.
And, well, the food was good, and there was always plenty of it. Yardratians ate almost as much as Saiyans though they had little else in common. And none of them gave him nasty looks, not even when his back was turned. And… there was the training.
Ah, the training.
Raditz had long ago come to understand, though he would never accept it, that he was weak, and always would be. It was just the way the world was. But even after just a few days spent purifying his spirit, he'd held his scouter up to himself and been amazed to see it click several hundred points higher than it always had. After a month he was in the five digit range. After three months he stopped using the scouter as anything but a communicator because he could sense everyone's power and he was the strongest being on the planet by a wide margin.
Not the most skilled, of course. Master Pybara regularly demonstrated that a clever use of this or that technique could make a weaker fighter a match for a stronger one. Teleport behind someone and strike before they notice you, then teleport away again; make clones or grow in size to intimidate or confuse; Raditz was still at the bottom of the totem pole, but for once he didn't mind. The Yardratians saw his weakness as potential, not failure. It merely showed that he had room to grow. And growing he was.
Mother was going to be so proud.
Then the Ginyus came.
They'd landed without warning, as they always did. As he had always done. Their five pods had crashed into a major city, killing thousands instantly and creating chaos. Pybara had turned to Raditz, who was sensing the same mass snuffing out of life that he was, and had asked for his help with tears in his eyes. Of course he'd said yes.
And nearly died for it.
Raditz had made sure to be in disguise, so the Ginyus hadn't known it was their old punching bag Raditz they were whaling on. But whale on him they did. He put up more of a fight than he ever had before, but one held breath from Guldo and he'd gotten a ki blast through the chest. It had hurt so bad he was sure he was about to die.
And maybe he would have. But before he did, the Ginyus all stopped what they were doing, listened to their scouters, and then turned and left without a word. Hatska had turned up then and healed him, giving Raditz his very first zenkai. And what a zenkai! He'd spent the weeks since then training with new fervor. They would be back, he knew. And he would be ready.
So when the pod crashed down in exactly the same spot as before, Raditz wasn't afraid. He was eager. This time he knew Instant Transmission. This time he had power and skill.
This time the Ginyus would die.
The door to the pod began to open. Raditz stood outside with a ki blast ready in his hand. Which one would it be, he wondered. Jeice? Recoome? Or Ginyu himself? And why only one?
No matter. He, Raditz, would rid the galaxy one and for all of the—
"Oh, hey, bro! I didn't expect to see you here!"