- Enter: Kabbats -
"Well, thirty seconds to go," Fridge muttered as the timer hit that number, "Be ready to destroy whatever the hell is in there if it turns out it isn't friendly."
"If it isn't friendly, it's as good as dead," Crowe replied as he charged a ball of ki into each hand and aimed it at the pod.
With a combination of creaking and hissing noises, the pod's door started opening, the person inside though still didn't show much of a powerlevel. Both Crowe and Fridge wondered whether it was still alive. Twenty seconds later, their question was answered: the Pod opened and from it stepped a man. He was large and muscular. He had a moustache and short, spiky hair, both black. His most prominent features though were the scars on his face and the fact that half his lower jaw was made of metal and he also had a metal tail. The man first looked at the stasis pods in the middle of the room and then looked to the side, at Fridge and Crowe. As he looked closer, a mixture of fear and joy came over his face and he dropped to the ground, kneeling down.
"My General Fridge, I am honoured to meet you again and pledge my allegiance to you once more." The strange figure said.
"Oh shit, Kabbats, is it really you?" Fridge exclaimed with a startled, though not frightened, look on his face, "How did you escape Frieza's wrath?"
"Technically, I didn't. You forget, my general, that it was my own son, Nappa, who betrayed our resistance to you cousin. When he did so he begged Frieza to let me and prince Vegeta live as well. Frieza did not object, afterall none of us could resist Frieza without the rest of our race. Thus, when Frieza destroyed planet Vegeta, he spared me too," Kabbats explained, "But I couldn't stand to be around my treacherous son anymore, he threw away his pride and his honour, all because he was afraid that Frieza might find out we were planning to overthrow him. I left, voluntarily though not without meeting resistance, and I was wounded in the process. Then Coola found me. His scientists took me in, but I was too wounded to survive. So they turned me into this: An Artificial Saiya-jin."
"What's a Saiya-jin?" Crowe asked, "and, for that matter what's an Artificial Saiya-jin?"
"The Saiya-jin are, or were, a people from the North galaxy. We are true warriors and our honour and pride are more important to us than anything else. As for an Artificial Saiya-jin, that means they pretty much replaced every part of my body that they could replace without killing me with something mechanical," Kabbats explained.
"But what did Coola do to you after that?" Fridge demanded.
"Well, first I was just another one of his grunts. I cleared planets for him. Coola is much more honorable than his brother though, or atleast not as cruel. He never sends an overpowering force to a planet, he always makes sure both sides are evenly matched. So I decided tohat working for him would be a good way to repay my debt. Untill... Kakarott came and killed Frieza. He became a Super Saiya-jin in the process." Kabbats answered.
"A Super Saiya-jin? That was supposed to be our trumphcard against Frieza and the rest of the Planettrade. And who is this Kakarott? I don't think I've ever met him." Fridge said in awe.
"Kakarott is Bardock's son and he isn't the only Super Saiya-jin either. Prince Vegeta also became one and so did the sons of Kakarott and Prince Vegeta. My son, Nappa betrayed the secret of the Super Saiya-jin to Frieza. When Kakarott killed Frieza, Coola wanted revenge, so he sent me to this place and the scientists started working on making me an Artificial Super Saiya-jin." Kabbats replied.
"Did it work, did they succeed?" Crowe asked.
Kabbats gestured, telling them to keep looking at him. Both of them did. Kabbats moved into a standard 'powerup' stance and braced himself. He screamed and squeezed his fists as the power inside him rose to a new hight. His eyes, formerly black in black, became green in black, his hair became golden, save for those that were synthetic. His muscles bulged. A golden aura blasted arround him. He stopped and the aura subsided, his golden hair and muscles stayed in their new form. "Yeah, I guess so," Kabbats shrugged.
Kabbats' hair turned black again and his muscles became smaller, "are we done with the third degree questioning now?" he asked.
"No, I actually do still have a question," Fridge said, "if you know that Coola is dead, why are you still here?"
"The Scientists needed me to power their life pods ... it didn't work though, they connected the wires the wrong way. Instead of my pod feeding theirs, their pod fed mine ... and me." Kabbats explained.
"I have a question too," Crowe mumbled.
"And what would that question be, young warrior?" Kabbats said with a smile.
"What the fuck do you think this is? A nude beach?" Crowe yelled, talking about Kabbats' lack of clothes.
"Hehe, General I like your pupil's style." Kabbats laughed as he beckoned them to follow him.
After following Kabbats into the armoury, they arrived at a locker full of clothes and armour.
Kabbats quickly found a Black body suit and a white armour with yellow patches (a normal Saiya-jin armour). He got a pair of boots and and a pair of gloves from a footlocker and put them on. He looked in a mirror, but the look on his face seemed to say he was still missing something. His expression changed as he reached into another footlocker. From it he took a black bandana and put it on his head.[br]
"There, now I'm dressed, time to get you set up properly," Kabbats said to Crowe. Again the Youcmou-jin and his mentor followed Kabbats through a series of doors with coded locks untill they came into a room with nothing more than a cilinder and a control panel.[br]
"Watch this," Kabbats told them as he fiddled with the controls. As Kabbats pressed the final button, the cilinder rose up with steam and a hissing sound. It revealed an armour, not entirely dissimilar to Kabbats', but not exactly the same either: Where Kabbats' armour was white, this armour was black and where Kabbats' armour was yellow, this armour was red. It's shoulderpads were straight on top an curved at the bottom, instead of being straight at the bottom and curved on top, like Kabbats' pads. It had included boots that were knee-high in front, but ended just below the knees in the back and that were made of the same black material as the main armor. Also include were gauntlets (think of the type of wrist-protectors that skaters wear) made of the black material with tiny red pads for the parts of the fingers closest to the hand. On the right side of the chest there was a red cirlce with an emblem in it that Crowe knew all too well: it was the same burnin claw thar graced the space above his right eye:
the symbol of his clan.
"What the fuck?" Crowe yelled, his face a mixture of awe, fear and surprise on his face.
What the fuck indeed. What is this strange armour that looks like it was made by the Youcmou-jin? Who is this new Artificial Saiya-jin? If Nappa only begged for the lives of Vegeta and Kabbats, then how did Radditz survive? And possibly the most pressing matter of all: Will Crowe ever eat what he found?
The answer to atleast some of these questions can be found in the next episode of TFoC.
And one of them won't so I'll answer it now: Radditz survived because of Bardock: When Bardock told Frieza that he had a vision that his son would become a Super Saiya-jin, Frieza assumed Bardock meant Radditz. So rather than killing Radditz, Frieza decided to take him in and have him around, just to spite Bardock and tempt fate. That's how Raddtitz survived.
In case anyone is wondering: Kabbats (Kabatsu) is derived from cabbach. I thought it would be a good name for the father of a guy called 'lettuce'. (sorta the same way that Bardock (which is a root) is the perfect name for the father of two children called 'carrot' and 'raddish' (both roots too). One thing is sure: Akira Toriyama wasn't goofing off when he made up his names.)