"Do you believe me now, little brother?" Raditz laughed.
"Damn you…Piccolo, are you…Oh no…" Goku gasped at Piccolo.
"Well, I've been better." Piccolo joked. He was holding the stump of his left arm, which had been severed by Raditz's beam. Thick purple blood dripped slowly from the wound onto the grass. Piccolo showed no pain on his face, though he had to be hurting.
"Hey, has anybody seen my arm? You can't miss it! It's green! Ha ha ha! Your head will be next!" Raditz howled with unholy glee.
"Goku, don't you have any secret, new technique?" Piccolo asked.
"Well, no, I'm afraid that I'm fresh out this time." Goku laughed.
"Slacker. Luckily, while you've been taking it easy, I've been perfecting a new attack." Piccolo told him.
Raimi watched the scene, nervous and tense. It was easy to watch this on TV, or to read it in the comic books, but to be here, and be unable to really help them, was torture. She knew what was going to happen, and it wasn't pretty. She looked back into the crater, at the space pod. She could hear Gohan calling for his father, and wished she could get him out. But, all things would happen in their due time, and patience was what was called for here. She tilted her head at the Saiyan, who was smirking at his brother. He had no idea that they were planning an attack that could kill him quite easily.
"You know, this the attack I've crafted to kill you."
"And now you are using it to help me. You must be very disappointed!" Goku burst out laughing, as did Piccolo.
"What? They are…laughing! Are they crazy? I'm going to destroy them, and they are laughing!" Raditz was baffled. "You can plot and plan all you want. I am still going to kill both of you, do you hear me?" He roared at them, their lack of fear infuriating him. He was baffled by their rather cavalier attitude about his speed and skills, and how they didn't seem to care about his superior strength.
In response to Raditz threat, Goku cracked his knuckles, and shot towards his brother. As they clashed, Piccolo started powering up, calling on all his power for use in the Makankosappo, his "Screw Beam Attack of the Devil". (That was as close as Raimi could translate it, her Japanese was rusty)
Goku was giving it all he had, but Raditz had a near total advantage, being taller, faster and stronger, as well as having a longer reach. Raimi was nearly jumping out of her skin at each lightning fast blow of which very few were Goku's. Then, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise. She hissed, and looked to the left to see what was causing this strange feeling of wariness.
It was Piccolo, who was almost ready to attack. He held two fingers to his forehead, and the energy that he held at the tips of those fingers was amazing. The light sang, pulsing and crackling, as if eager to fly. Then she heard a loud smack, and looked over at the brothers, to see Goku flying across the field. He barely touched ground before he hopped high in the air and, with a grimace of anger dropped into a well-practiced stance. He was going for his great hissatsu-waza, a desperation move, called Kamehameha, taught to him by Master Roshi.
"Kame…" Goku's started. The power started to build between his cupped hands.
"What! His power level is skyrocketing! 800, 850, how is he doing that?" Raditz yelled, not believing the readings on his scouter. He tapped the machine, and it began to broadcast the fight to his two partners in deep space. He knew they would be very interested in the techniques these Earthlings were using.
"Ha…" Goku's voice was changed, ringing with the power he was summoning. Now light was bursting from between his fingers, making the surrounding area go dark by comparison.
"That's it, he's focusing his power on a single point. That's it! What a technique!" Raditz wasn't quite as dumb as he seemed. However, he wasn't totally correct, since the Kamehameha was made of Goku's own Chi and Chi from the elements of the Earth around him; this "borrowed" power made the beam that much more powerful.
"Mey…" The light had grown, and Goku shifted his body more forward in preparation of releasing the beam.
"He's at 980, incredible! There is no way he could be so high!" Raditz noticed another reading behind him, and swore, realizing he had underestimated these men. Piccolos' level was at 1,330, and he was almost ready with his beam as well.
"Ha!" Goku let his beam fly, and Raditz ran to avoid it, but Goku had a new trick for his brother. He concentrated, and moved his hands, shifting the beam so it flew after the fleeing Saiyan. Piccolo and Raimi held their breaths, and waited. Raditz must have realized he couldn't get away from the beam, because he suddenly stopped, and turned.
"You dare! Well that's enough!" He shouted, and held his left hand forward, braced by his right. He stood right in the way of the beam and it hit his hands, exploding in a white blast that none of them could see through. Goku had really wound up that beam, and the blast was really big. When the dust began to clear, Piccolo and Goku really expected to see Raditz badly hurt, if not killed. However, he was not hurt at all; he stood at the edge of a small blast crater, still in the blocking stance, eyes squeezed shut. He slowly lowered his arms, and then snapped out his wrist, so that smoke rose from his palm. Raimi sighed in frustration.
"He, he caught it!" Goku couldn't believe his eyes. "Piccolo better hurry."
"Brother! Let me show you how it's done!" Raditz laughed, and let fly a retaliatory beam at Goku. It raced at him, too fast to be avoided. It hit him and tossed him backwards, then gave off a small explosion. Goku tried to block it, but didn't have the time. He began to fall, stunned.
In Raditz's ship, Gohan had been furious and frightened by turns. Now he saw a flash of color in the sky, and looked closer at it. It was his father, falling to Earth, and he was hurt. Gohan was too young to understand what he felt, but it was rage, and his rage was making his power level rise, almost doubling it. But, more important, his Saiyan heritage was surfacing. He was nearing the point where even at his young age; he would be very dangerous to the focus of his anger. Raimi stiffened, and felt Goosebumps rise on her skin. She couldn't believe that Raditz couldn't feel Gohan getting ready to blow down there. Raditz was dashing over to where Goku had hit the ground, which was very near to where Raimi was standing, ready to pound his brother into a pulp, laughing with excitement; he had held back with his beam, just so he could used his bare hands on his little brother. He appeared above Goku and landed a wicked stomp to his brothers' ribs. Goku howled in pain, then Raditz grabbed him by the shreds of his gi.
Raimi was trembling as she struggled not to jump into it with the Saiyan. Such a move would surely be suicide, since she couldn't fight. Raditz, in the meantime, was winding up for a killer right hook, when he remembered Piccolo. He looked over his shoulder, and gaped at the sight of the energy Piccolo held at his fingertips.
"Let's see you block this one!" Piccolo said, feeling rather smug.
"He's at 1,330, I can't block that!" Raditz sounded scared for the first time. But he squared his shoulders and sneered at Piccolo. "Okay, let's go!"
"You've got it…Makankosappo!" Piccolo shouted, his voice ringing as Goku's had done. The ghastly light swelled from his fingers, then burst forth as a ray with a spinning spiral beam winding around it. It moved so fast, that Raimi and Goku barely saw it before it had flashed by and was heading for the mountains behind them. Goku threw an arm over his eyes as the beam caused an explosion of pure white light. Raimi felt something flash by her and shards of something hit her arm. It seemed as if Raditz had been hit, but when the light had died and the smoke had cleared, Raditz was revealed, panting as he glared at Piccolo. The right epaulette of his armor was blasted off, and his shoulder was burnt and bleeding, but he was still in far better shape than Goku or Piccolo was. The mountain the beam had hit was gone, completely destroyed.
"He… he dodged it! He must be faster than the speed of light! But that is impossible!" Piccolo was whispering to himself, but in the dead silence after that blast, everyone heard him.
"Well, well, look what you did to my armor! Imagine what it would have done to me if I let it hit me! Now, it's my turn. I have something I want to show you. Do you remember? It's the one I call watch the birdie!" Raditz held his hand up in the air.
"I remember," Piccolo sighed. Raditz had threatened him with this earlier that day. He braced himself, watching those black eyes as light gathered in Raditz's hand. The Saiyan pulled back and was in the process of hurling the gathered energy at Piccolo, when he choked and the light in his hand dissipated. He and Piccolo both gasped in surprise, as they realized that Goku had sneaked up on his brother and grabbed his tail. Raditz stumbled as Goku laughed at him.
"You were careless with your tail! I'll never forget how much my tail hurt and how weak I got when someone squeezed it!" He smiled evilly and squeezed the thick monkey like tail as hard as he could. Raditz bit his lip as a whine escaped his throat, and he fell to his knees. Goku squeezed and twisted the tail maliciously, his Saiyan blood showing for a moment. "Piccolo, your attack, do it again!" he yelled.
