~Chapter 18: Monsters on Planet Namek~
It's astounding to be standing on another planet. Our minds are so conditioned to think that no matter where we go, we're still on Earth, that attempting to convince yourself that you're somwhere else is more than a little bewildering. I was very impressed with Namek. I wrote three or four hundred words here describing the planet in detail, but I edited out because I realized when I read it that it wasn't that interesting. I guess it was more the experience of being on another planet than the planet's actual features that made it so captivating. Here's the short version: the land on Namek was mostly by large, open fields with a lot of cliffs and other sharp changes in elevation, and the ocean was vast and calm but peppered with a lot of small islands. The most striking thing was probably the two suns. It's never night on Namek.
The first thing we did after getting out (besides getting yelled at by Bulma) was to check the dragon ball radar. Surprise - it found seven dragon balls. We were really happy. It seemed almost too good to be true - not only had we actually made it to the planet Namek, there were actually dragon balls on it! Really, the whole trip had seemed like a false hope from the start. We were going mostly on faith. At that point, though, I could finally see us actually getting the balls, and using them to bring everybody back to life. While Bulma and I were jumping around and celebrating, though, Gohan was staring off into space.
"Uh... Kuririn..." he said, "Do you feel some ki?"
Just then, I did. I felt a lot of ki. It felt very, very powerful and very, very evil. We'd only been on Namek for a minute and a half, and I was already regretting it. Gohan and I stood and stared nervously in the direction we felt it from. Bulma said that it was probably just the Namekians, but I could tell just from the feel of it that it wasn't. Feeling that ki put a lump in my throat. It was even worse than Vegeta and Nappa. I tried to go along with Bulma's assumption anyway. "Sure," I said, "It's just the Namekians. That's gotta be it." I desperately tried to push the uneasy feeling out of my mind. I don't think I could have even if I hadn't seen Vegeta's spaceship enter the atmosphere a few seconds later.
I recognized the spherical little ship immediately. All at once, any hope that I still had vanished. We were doomed. I think I felt angry more than anything else. Both at myself - the trip to Namek had been my idea, after all, and I should have realized that Vegeta would be coming for the dragon balls himself - and at the entire universe. Why couldn't things ever just work out for us? I was so disgusted that I threw my cap to the ground. I tried to calm myself down and think. I had to take control of the situation as much as I could. I realized that it was pretty much up to me to be the leader, which is a position that I'm not usually in. I suppressed my ki and told Gohan to do the same, to avoid being detected. My mind raced with thoughts of what we'd do next.
"We have to go back to Earth! Now!" said Bulma. That was probably the most sensible decision, but I wasn't ready to let go of the hope of bringing our friends back to life. Also, I couldn't help but feel like playing the hero a little bit. I knew that Vegeta was a menace, and I shuddered to think what he would do if he got the dragon balls. I told Bulma to go back to Earth on her own, and Gohan and I would just have to try to keep the balls out of the wrong hands somehow. Little Gohan unflinchingly stepped up and agreed to help me. Bulma went back to the ship to send a message to Earth to inform the others of the situation. Really, all three of us were frightened half to death, but you have to keep moving, you have to have something to do. There's no worse feeling than just sitting around, waiting to die.
Gohan and I felt Vegeta's ki appear not too far away, confirming our suspicions. After Bulma finished her call to Earth ("Vegeta's here! I'm coming back alone! Tell Goku and everybody, except, whatever you do, don't tell Chichi!"), another spherical ship came from the sky and landed right next to Vegeta's, and a ki almost as powerful as Vegeta's came out of it. That was alarming, but we were confused more than anything. Who in the world was that? I never learned, because that ki disappeared pretty quickly. I guess whoever it was must have been killed, maybe by Vegeta. I guess that's just one of the things that happened on Namek that I'll never know about. If I really had to know, I could ask Vegeta, but... I don't really HAVE to know. You know?
Bulma almost did go back to Earth. It's really my fault that she didn't. Even though I'd already made up my mind to stay on Namek, when I saw her leaving, I got cold feet. The sight of my only shot at ever going home again leaving made me very nervous and scared. While I was stalling, Gohan noticed someone coming toward us. The ki felt too weak to be Vegeta, so we figured that it was Namekians. The two strange-looking bipeds that emerged from behind a cliff, though, were definitely not Saiyans or Namekians. However, they were wearing the same kind of armor that had been on Vegeta, Nappa, and even Raditz, and they had scouters. That was when it first occurred to me that we were dealing with something a lot bigger than just Vegeta. These guys were obviously scouts for somebody. I had a very bad feeling.
The two flew up to where they were floating directly above us. Gohan and I drew from our image training on the ship to do some slightly tricky ki manipulation - hiding our ki while simultaneously actually concentrating it and powering up. You can't entirely hide your ki while concentrating it, but you can make it seem small enough to only show up as 2 or 3 on a scouter. They probably read that and thought that they'd pick us off like nothing. They decided to attack our spaceship first, though, and before we could do anything, they blasted it beyond the ability to take off.
That made us really angry. That ship might have been our only chance at getting back to Earth. They floated there, taunting us.
"Gohan," I whispered, "Release your ki."
Gohan and I showed our full power, and those two unlucky scouts' faces clearly reflected that they'd made a bad decision in coming after us. They weren't totally weak - I'd say their powers were about 100 or 200 - but against Gohan and I, it was no contest. We moved too fast for them to see, and killed them both with one blow from each of us. Well, that was one threat gone. Gohan and I congratulated ourselves a little, and Bulma just about had a fit.
Really, the incident with the scouts haunts me as much as anything on Namek. I feel dirty about that. I have to say that I enjoyed it. As doomed, trapped and helpless as I felt in my situation, it gave me no small amount of perverse pleasure to know that it was still well within my power to ensure the doom of lesser beings. In that moment, I felt powerful, and it felt great. Now, if we had let them escape they would have informed Frieza about us, and then we would really have been in trouble. Also, it isn't like they wouldn't have killed us without a moment's hesitation if they could have. All that is perfectly true, but no matter how much I rationalize, I always come back to the fact that I killed someone and I enjoyed it. As if that wasn't enough, Gohan, who was only 5 years old, took his first life under my command. It makes me feel like a monster. I can only take comfort in the fact that we weren't really the agressors.
I was actually feeling a tiny bit better about our chances then, probably because I'd done something. Bulma, though, was inconsolable. She knelt before the ruined ship, crying. "It's all over," she said over and over. I began to feel anxious. We couldn't stay where we were because there would probably be stronger people coming. We salvaged what we could from the ship and tried to find a good place to hide. It wasn't easy, because most of Namek is pretty open. We couldn't fly, either, because you can't really fly and hide your ki at the same time, and we'd be detected. We had to walk, and Bulma was too frightened and despondent to move very quickly. Gohan tried to comfort her a little, but I was too focused on surviving to care. After several minutes, we did find a cave, and just in time. We ran in there and hid just as we felt strong ki approaching very near. We saw a group of about a dozen fly by us very quickly. They moved so quickly that we barely saw them, but Gohan and I could feel them, and they felt like monsters. All of them were strong - some as strong as Vegeta, or nearly so - but it was one of them in particular, a very peculiar looking thing second from the lead, that we noticed.
Have you ever read about sunspots? If you took them by themselves, they would glow very brightly, but the glow of the rest of the sun is so bright that they seem pitch black in comparison. That's kind of what it felt like. The others were incredibly strong, but with him among them we could barely notice. The power felt so great, and so terrible, that we just froze. My entire body shook uncontrollably. What we were feeling could only belong to a monster.
As soon as I could breathe again, which was probably a good half a minute later, I told Bulma to check the dragon ball radar. She did, and she told me what I'd already been thinking - that group was carrying four of the dragon balls. Things felt more hopeless than ever. I didn't know how we could ever get the balls away from monsters like that. Bulma also saw on the radar that they were heading toward a fifth dragon ball, which had to mean that they knew how to locate them somehow. I decided that we had to check that out, so Gohan and I set out to the place that the radar had indicated. We ran instead of flying so that we could suppress our ki more effectively. I hadn't ran when I'd wanted to get somewhere quickly in a long time, and I was kind of surprised how quickly we did move. Although the place was a pretty good distance away, we got there in just a few minutes.
We crawled up to a high cliff ledge and looked down. We saw a village consisting of a garden and several buildings that looked very similar in design to the spaceship that we had come in. The buildings were simple, but very well made and not the least bit crude. The group that we had felt before was going all throughout the village and rifling through the buildings. They were all wearing Saiyan-type armor and scouters. Most of them didn't feel that strong. Three of the group weren't moving, however. They remained in a spot to one side of the village. In the center was a small, incredibly strange-looking creature with a head that looked almost like a helmet and two obsidian black horns, floating in a round device. He was the one with the amazing power that we'd felt before. On either side of him stood his right hand men. I believe that they were called Zarbon and Dodoria, and they were both incredibly strong, although nothing close to their master. Zarbon looked almost like a human, and a handsome one at that. Dodoria was a large, squat pinkish thing with horns coming out at odd places. Each of the two was carrying two dragon balls, much bigger ones than on Earth. I was somewhat curious at the fact that I couldn't see Vegeta anywhere.
The various weaker soldiers forcibly led creatures out of the buildings, and then we finally saw real Namekians. They looked just like Piccolo and Kami-sama, although varied in shape and size and facial features. As I recall, there were three older ones and two children. The soldiers led the group to where the strong creature was floating.
"Greetings," said the creature, "I am called Frieza." He spoke with a tone that was very polite and refined, but chilling just the same.
I assumed that Frieza was the boss of some group or army. I had no idea. Frieza was quite a presence in our galaxy for some time. His hobby was to collect planets, and almost as often, to destroy them by his own hand. It was Frieza who killed most of the Saiyan race, enslaved the rest, and destroyed their home planet. He commanded an enormous army. Throughout the entire galaxy, except backwoods planets like Earth that news usually doesn't get to, Frieza's might was legendary and feared. For many years, life in the galaxy followed one of three paths: Either you were very lucky and never met Frieza, you were sort of lucky and he considered you worth keeping around, or you were slaughtered. That was it. That all changed on Planet Namek.
"I am collecting your dragon balls," continued Frieza. "Where is the dragon ball here?"
The Namek who seemed to be the Village Elder spoke. (His name was actually Muri, but I wouldn't learn that until the whole ordeal was over.) "I... I don't know what you're talking about..." he said. Frieza shook his head and chuckled. He then told him about another Namekian that they had killed. That Namekian had told them that they only gave the dragon balls to great heroes. As Frieza put it, "He was being so stubborn, so we killed another as a lesson." We were shocked. How terrible Frieza was. He would kill anyone just for effect. You know, I mentioned earlier that I believe that everyone deserves a second chance. If there's an exception to that in the universe, it's definitely Frieza. He was just pure evil. It's impossible to know of Frieza without hating him.
As he continued, we learned more about the Namekian dragon balls. Apparently, the balls had been made by the Namekian Great Elder or Saichourou, and he had delegated seven village elders to hold the balls. They would only give them to someone who they deemed worthy. Frieza said that the first elder had refused, so they killed him.
"After that," said Frieza, "The next three were happy to oblige."
"Liar!" shouted Muri. "The elders would never give the dragon balls to you!"
"No, really," said Frieza, "They all obliged happily when we did this. Mr. Zarbon?"
Without even setting down his dragon balls, Zarbon flew at one of the adult Namekians and killed him with a single kick. The other screamed and attacked him with a blast, which he dodged, causing it to hit and kill one of Frieza's weaker men. Zarbon blasted him to death quickly. It was terrible to watch, but there was nothing we could do. The Namekian that he had just killed was as strong as Gohan or I.
"Well, how do you feel about it now?" said Frieza.
"Why do you want the dragon balls?" asked Muri.
"Oh, merely eternal life for myself."
That was another red flag to me. I seemed to remember Vegeta wanting the dragon balls for that same reason, so it was pretty certain that he wasn't with Frieza. I realized, though, that because of the armor he must have been with him at some point. I didn't quite make the connection that he was rebelling yet, though.
Muri refused to give the dragon ball to Frieza, even if it meant his death. In turn, Frieza threatened to kill the children. The Namekian was horrified. "Not even you could be such a monster--!" he said. The Namekian children clung to him and cried. I was so angry that it hurt. I couldn't believe how cruel Frieza was.
Just then, three younger Nameks arrived. I could tell that they had substantial power, but they were suppressing it. They came obviously intending to fight. When Frieza's men read their powers on the scouters, they thought that it was only 1000, and all of the weaker soldiers charged the three Namekians. When they released their true power, though, it was much higher, and they fought valiantly against the soldiers, killing most of them. It gave us a lot of hope to see them fighting back like that and doing so well. All the while, though, Zarbon, Dodoria, and Frieza just sat and watched, seeming only mildly bothered. Finally, after the Namekians had defeated almost all of the soldiers, Frieza ordered Dodoria to kill them. He put down his dragon balls to comply when Muri suddenly blasted him in the face. It didn't affect Dodoria much, but it destroyed his scouter. The Namekian elder leapt high into the air and blasted two more scouters, and I realized that he'd destroyed all of them. That was smart of him, and it was probably that brave move that kept us alive for a long time on Namek. It's hard to hide from people with scouters. He probably did it to try and stop them from finding the rest of the villages.
Dodoria got really mad about the scouters and flew after Muri, but Frieza ordered him to kill the young ones first. They tried to fight him, but it was hopeless. Dodoria just slaughtered them. It was like torture to have to sit and watch that. He put his fist right through one of them. There was blood everywhere. Oh, Kami, I still have nightmares.
Having seen all that, Muri finally submitted to Frieza and agreed to give him the dragon ball. "First," he said, "Promise you won't do anything to the children." Frieza only grinned in response. The bastard. Gohan started to lose it right around then. I saw him shaking with anger, and I tried to calm him down. I was worried that he'd attack and get us both killed.
Muri gave Frieza the dragon ball, but he also wanted to know where the other balls were. The Namek refused to tell him.
"Dear me," said Frieza in a voice like he was dealing with a stubborn child, "I guess you and the children will have to die, after all."
"No!" shouted Muri, and Dodoria hit him. Muri told the children to run and tried to throw himself at Frieza and the others, but Frieza just extended a hand and shot an impossibly fast ki blast from his finger, going over Muri's shoulder and killing one of the children. Dodoria grabbed Muri and snapped his neck. Only one Namekian child was still alive. He tried to run, but Dodoria was soon right above him.
At this point, Gohan was beyond control. Despite my efforts to hold him back, he screamed and flew at Dodoria, kicking him into a cliff wall. I silently uttered a long string of profanity to myself - that was exactly what I'd been afraid would happen. We were no match for these people. Dodoria started to get back up, but I attacked him while he was still off-balance, grabbed the Namekian child, screamed, "Gohan, you idiot! Run!" and flew away as quickly as I could. We never would have gotten away with it except for the fact that Frieza and his men were confused for a little while because they didn't know who we were.
We flew as fast as we could manage. Gohan wanted to go back and fight, but I screamed "just keep going!" His attack on Dodoria had been brave, but to actually stay and fight him would be suicide. Our only chance was to get away. As fast as we were flying, however, Dodoria still caught up to us easily. I panicked as I felt his huge ki approaching us, and I realized that I'd have to stay back and fight him a little. I could only think of two things that I could do. The first would have been to kill Dodoria with a Kienzan, but I thought to myself that if he dodged it, which he probably would, then I'd be dead before I had the time to set up another one. The other idea I had seemed to be a better bet, but the only problem was that it involved a move that I'd never actually done before. Not having much choice, I tossed the alarmed little Namekian to Gohan and turned, without stopping, to face Dodoria and perform a Taiyoken.
In case you don't remember from when I've mentioned it earlier, the Taiyoken is a useful ki manipulation move that produces a lot of light very quickly and blinds anyone who sees it temporarily. All I knew about the move at the time was what I'd heard from Tenshinhan - you press your index and middle fingers on the temples of your forehead, and concentrate and release a lot of ki starting from there. The result is hopefully a diffuse energy release in the form of light. I didn't do it quite right that time, but I did well enough to blind Dodoria pretty effectively. While he stopped to claw at his eyes, Gohan and I headed for lower ground and hid. Actually, Gohan didn't really have any idea what was going on or what I'd just done to Dodoria, but he hid when I told him to. I was pretty pleased with myself - my little plan had gone perfectly. Dodoria flew all around the area, screaming in anger, but he couldn't find us without his scouter. I allowed myself a sigh of relief, thinking that we'd escaped death that time.
However, Dodoria did something unexpected. I saw him suddenly turn calm and rise high into the air. He brought his arms back as if forming a ki blast. Fortunately, I realized what he was doing and managed to grab both Gohan and the Namekian and fly out of the way just before it hit. Dodoria blasted a good mile radius of the planet to rubble just in the hopes that he'd get us in there somewhere. It was pretty scary. What a psycho. He looked around and was pretty satisfied with his handiwork, so he left. We never saw Dodoria again or even felt his ki after that. Probably he was another of Vegeta's victims. I think that I remember Vegeta mentioning that he'd killed "Zarbon and Dodoria" at some point. Oh well - somehow, I think the universe will get along fine without the late Mr. Dodoria. I certainly don't miss him.
I let the little Namekian go after he told me that he could fly on his own. He looked nervous, but he hadn't lost his calm, which is really admirable when you think about it. He'd just seen his entire village massacred, and barely escaped the same himself. Even us saving him must have been pretty traumatic, as there was a lot of grabbing him and running away and even throwing him around a bit. I made some effort to be gentle with the kid, but I really didn't have a lot of time to think about that while we were running from Dodoria. He floated in front of me and kind of pierced me with his eyes. At that point, he didn't really know who we were, or anything about us besides the fact that we'd just saved his life. I have to wonder how much he really trusted us then, because we were very alien to him.
The Namekian Child thanked me for saving him. I told him to thank Gohan, because he's the one who stuck his neck out.
"But without you, Kuririn, we'd all have died," said Gohan. His voice was very grateful and kind of admiring.
"Whatever," I said. I didn't feel like taking any compliments from Gohan. I felt too much like a coward. I wonder what it says about me that I would have just let Dodoria kill that kid, had it been up to me. I wouldn't have felt good about it, but I would have. My rationale at the time was that we couldn't do anything, we were too weak, but that wasn't really true, was it? After all, Gohan took the chance and we did manage to save the child. That's just how it is, I guess. I feel badly about a lot of the decisions I've made in my lifetime, but when you're making decisions that mean life or death for you and others, there's really no other way to feel. It's very hard. That's why I'm grateful that I've played the follower more often than the leader like I did that day, and why I've never been jealous of Goku. I've been there. I know how hard it is to make decisions like that. If you aren't careful, you can tear yourself up over it, and destroy your own soul from the inside.
The three of us flew around for several minutes trying to get back to the cave where Bulma was hiding, but before we got there we felt a powerful ki coming toward us quickly. I thought that it was Dodoria again or maybe Zarbon, so we hid again and suppressed our ki. Gohan looked up to find our assailant, and he suddenly shuddered in shock. I looked up and saw to my horror that it wasn't Zarbon or Dodoria who was after us - it was Vegeta. Even worse, he wasn't wearing a scouter, which meant that Vegeta must have realized the ability to sense ki, taking away a major advantage of ours. As Vegeta looked around furiously, I clutched my body around the Namekian and crouched as low as I possibly could. That's one of the few times when I've actually wished that I was smaller than I am. About an inch tall would have been nice. Just as long as Vegeta couldn't see me.
Vegeta's search suddenly became a lot less random. He focused on the rock we were hiding behind. He must have been sensing the Namekian's ki, because Gohan and I were definitely suppressing ours all the way to 0. As Vegeta started to approach us, my heart was pounding. I really thought that we were going to die. We'd have fought him, of course, but it's unlikely we would have gotten away. For once, though, the odds went our way. Just before Vegeta saw us, an alien fish leapt out of the water nearby, making Vegeta think that that was the ki he'd felt. After floating there alarmingly close for a few seconds and frowning, he left. I think I held my breath for another fifteen seconds easy before collapsing on the ground in intense relief. I just about had a heart attack. I don't think I've ever felt so relieved just to be alive. Even though we hadn't actually fought, I felt utterly exhausted just from being so nervous. I just wanted to rest.
As we went back to the cave, keeping our kis as low as we could manage, I really regretted coming to Namek. I wanted so much to be able to bring back Yamucha and the others, but between Frieza, Vegeta, and everything, it sure seemed like if anything, we'd be adding to the body count with our own lives.
--END OF CHAPTER EIGHTEEN--