A/N:    I know, it has taken long to finally update this chapter, but if you read my profile you'll find out that I finally found a boyfriend! He's in my class and it seems that we both were already attracted to each other for quite some time and were only too afraid to admit it to each other. In the end it were our other classmates who had to set us up. It seems like it was obvious for everyone but us. *grins* But now we're together and happy.

And now, here it is… The next chapter… Have fun!

By the way, thank you Chunky for proofreading this chapter!

Chapter 29: The Prisoner

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Radditz held a thoughtful expression on his face when he left the throne room of his Lord. Surprisingly, he had been able to escape the expected punishment for his failure of bringing all of Vegeta's spheres to him because Frieza had been in a good mood, just like Zarbon had said. This and the fact that the lost sphere wasn't lost and had appeared again on the island. So Frieza had given him one more chance to redeem himself and he was more than willing to take it. He had done this whole revolt-thing so as not fall into his Lord's displeasure and he would do whatever it took to keep up his good position. Besides, getting the sphere to Frieza did not seem like it would be that much of a problem. Next to Zarbon and Dodoria (and Frieza of course), there was not a person on this island that could pose a threat for him or Nappa. The only other more serious threat would have been his brother, but now his brother was going to waste away in the dungeons, a danger for neither him nor anyone else anymore. And his brother's crew? A bunch of pitiful weaklings. It would be a child's play to get their spheres and then no one would ever be able to defeat Frieza.

'Tomorrow,' Radditz thought, when he looked through one of the windows at the dark night sky. For now the only thing he really wanted was a warm bath to finally wash away all the traces of long travel and then sleep for a few hours without interruption.

~*~

The sailor known as Son Goku began to stir, his head still throbbing painfully and the rest of his body awfully sore. Though his mind was still a bit fuzzy, he immediately remembered what had happened. He had been lying at the beach and then Zarbon had knocked him out again.

Zarbon!

His eyes shot open only to notice that it was completely dark around him. He looked around frantically, trying to find a source of light, which could maybe give him a hint of his whereabouts, but in vain. While he was moving, he felt the hard, damp, and cold stone floor on which he was sitting, and he could hear the rattling of chains. Now he took notice of the added pressure on his wrists – shackles. The only thing running through his head at this moment was, 'I have to get out; I have to get to the others!' They were surely thinking that he was dead and he knew them too well to think that they would just turn around and sail home. They were going to do everything in their might to accomplish this task, even if that meant going down.

In a rush of mild panic Goku tried to free his wrists, struggling and tearing at the chains, which only made the rattling louder. 'I have to get out! I just have to!'

"It's no use."

The calmness of this voice made him stop. Was there someone else? He thought that he was alone. He carefully searched the cell with his eyes and, indeed, now that they were getting used to the darkness surrounding him, he could make out the forms of another person on the other side of the cell. "Who are you?" he asked more out of surprise than of actual interest.

"I was once a warrior," the man replied mysteriously, though his voice sounded tired and old as if he had long ago lost hope, "but now I'm only a prisoner."

Goku didn't want to pry further since it seemed to him as if this stranger did not want to talk about himself anymore, so he opted for a more general question. "Where are we?"

"You don't know?" The voice showed a hint of surprise. "Most people only know this place as 'the Dungeons'."

"The place no prisoner ever escaped from," the sailor muttered, the true meaning of this starting to sink in. He had heard about Frieza's dungeons – well, who had not? – and if the rumors were portraying the truth then his chances escaping from this place were slim to nonexistent. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, images of his friends and family flashing in front of them. If he didn't manage to flee then he would never see them again and only God knew what would happen to them.

"Well, boy… Now that it seems that we're going to spend some time together, and don't get me wrong, but I really appreciate you being here, since this is the first time that I'm sharing my cell with someone. Care to tell me your name?"

Goku looked up again and stared into the darkness in front of him. The stranger was right, if they were going to spend some time together in one cell, he should at least introduce himself. "Son Goku. My name is Son Goku."

"Son Goku, hn? You're quite famous, it seems. I hear your name rather often down here. You're in any way related to the old sailor Son Gohan?" he wanted to know.

"He was my grandfather," the young Saiyajin replied. "He died when I was still a child."

"I'm sorry," the prisoner told him and Goku could swear that he heard some sympathy in his voice. "He was a great man."

"You knew him?"

"No, not really." The man shook his head, though Son Goku couldn't see it. "But we had common, I daresay, the best word might be friends."

"Um," Goku hesitated. There were suddenly so many questions he wanted to ask, now that he found out that this stranger seemed to know some things about his deceased grandfather. "May I ask…? How long have you been here?"

"I don't know… It's easy to lose the track of time. I think I stopped counting the years after my fifteenth. I was brought here the night Frieza took over this island," he told him.

Goku looked at him in shock. "But that's… You've been here for twenty-five years? Then you are the prisoner everyone talks about, the one who has survived the longest and just doesn't seem to want to die."

"That would be me, I guess… But dear God, has it really been that long already?" the voice in the dark asked thoughtfully. "I still remember the night like it just happened yesterday."

"What have you done? I mean, there must be a reason for you to be here."

The stranger spat out a short laugh, almost cruel and mocking. "There isn't much you have to do to end up here, but I'll tell you. I defied Frieza. He wanted to recruit an army, but I didn't want to serve him, as well as most of the other Saiyajins."

"You are a Saiyajin?" the young man interrupted him.

"Yes, but don't be afraid. I fear I'm not even strong enough to walk anymore, let alone fight or kill someone. Besides, the chains would hold me back. You must know, not all Saiyajins are bad. We were once an honorable race."

"I know, I've been told so not so long ago…" Son Goku admitted. "So, what did Frieza do after you defied him?"

Suddenly, from one moment the next the tension in the air thickened and the strange prisoner continued his tale with a grim voice. "First he took my oldest son. I never found out what happened to him, but I'm sure he's dead. The same night he started to take over the island, slaughtering each and every Saiyajin that was standing in his way. I feared already long before that something like this was going to happen, so I organized for my mate, who at this time had been carrying my second child under her heart, and me a boat that would take us away the night everything started."

Goku could hear his fellow inmate slowly inhale a ragged breath and immediately started to feel sorry for him.

"Due to the stress put upon her, my mate went into childbirth sooner than expected. She bore me a boy, but didn't survive the strains of the birth. At the same moment she closed her eyes my partner and confidant, once a member of my crew, stormed into my house and told me that some of Frieza's men were about to come to get me. I was only able to stare at the small boy, my son, and knew that he just had to survive, so I quickly wrote a letter, gave it to my friend, and told her about the place where we'd be expected that night. He left us at once and I've never heard of him since then. I only wrote another letter and finished it just in time as I heard the loud noise Frieza's men were causing. So I left through a backdoor with my son wrapped up in a blanket and fought my way through the jungle to the meeting place. There I found out that my partner managed to deliver the letter and so the old friend I met up with already knew what was going on. I gave her the boy and told her to leave. I don't know if they made it or if they were attacked by Frieza's men on sea, but that was the one thing I could do to save the only son I had left. And then I waited and it didn't take long for Zarbon to reach me. We fought and I lost. I was fully expecting to die and join my mate, but those bastards let me live to rot away in those cells, with the only hope that my son had a better fate and would grow up in peace."

The young Saiyajin's eyes were wide with shock and surprise. All the things the prisoner said were running through his head, without being able to be put together to a coherent thought. He didn't notice that his hands were starting to shake nor that cold sweat was running down his face. This was impossible. What kind of sick joke was that? This story, it must have been made up! There was no way that this was true. 'Was Frieza trying to play some cruel trick on me? To make me believe that…? Damn it! Why is it so dark in the cell?' He wanted to see the face of the other prisoner! He needed to!

"Are you okay, boy?" the strange, or maybe not so strange, man wanted to know. "You're so quiet. I know, this story doesn't have a happy end, but you wanted to know how I ended up here. Not very Saiyajin-like, hn? I guess this is kind of unexpected for you folks who only know of the cruelties caused by the Saiyajins. But just like I already said, we were once a race of honor until Frieza appeared." He paused a bit, giving the young man some time to muse about the things he had just told him. He didn't know why, but somehow he couldn't help but feel a strange connection to this young sailor who, in a way, was still a boy. He wanted him to understand this, that not all Saiyajins were ruthless killers just for the fun of it, that there were - or better, had been – also other ones. "Well, I told you my story and now I'm eager to hear yours."

Son Goku took a deep breath. If this was really one of Frieza's mind games he needed to remain a cool head. He needed to be prepared to counter a possible attack. He could not let his mind be clouded by those confusing feelings. Not now. He cleared his throat and swallowed the lump in his throat before he began. "During the storm there was an accident on my ship that threw me over board and I was washed ashore, where Zarbon and Dodoria found me."

"So? That was it? There must be more. For example, what were you doing in this region of the sea? I thought that most sane people would stay away from here."

"It's… complicated. Frieza is after the legendary Treasure of Power, seven magical spheres. He had already gathered some of them and sent one of his crews to the Western Capitol to retrieve a sphere an old friend of mine possessed. I tried to protect them, but failed. Vegeta took the sphere and kidnapped my friend and I'm chasing his ship since then."

"Wait a second," the other prisoner suddenly said with a voice that betrayed surprise and disbelieve. "Ve- Vegeta is alive? The Prince is alive?"

The sailor nodded in the darkness and clenched his fists. "Yes. He's working for Frieza."

"And… his crew? Are there more Saiyajins who have survived?" The voice was getting a hint of excitement and also hope. Excitement that the Prince, his Prince was still alive and hope that he there were indeed more Saiyajins that had survived the massacre two and half decades ago.

"There are two more in his crew," Goku told him at length and clearly hesitating. "A large bulky one with the name of Nappa."

"Vegeta's bodyguard," the prisoner mumbled. "And who else?"

"The other's name is… Radditz."

"Oh my…" The voice died after forming those two words and Goku was sure now that the one on the other side of the cell wasn't an imposter. No one could fake this kind of shock, not when you could feel it in the whole cell.

"You knew him?" He didn't know why he asked this question, because he already knew the answer. But he still needed to hear them, the words that would confirm everything. The lump in his throat returned and he could feel his mouth becoming dry, when the answer didn't come at once. His eyes were fixated on the shadow across of him, not daring to look away.

"Radditz was- is my son. The one Frieza took away."

Upon hearing those few words Son Goku's world came crashing down. So it was true. But what should he do now? What should he say? Should he tell him or just let it be. But didn't this man have the right to know that his other son was alive as well – and that he was talking to him at the very moment? "Your other son," he said after he finally found his voice again. "His name… you called him Kakarotto, didn't you?"

"What?" Goku could suddenly feel a pair of eyes fixated on him. "Yes… but how…? Do you… do you know him?"

"You sent him to General Kaiou with a letter that explained the whole situation, didn't you? Unfortunately Kaiou, who had been standing shortly before his promotion at this time, didn't have time to raise a child, so he gave him to a close friend. The boy grew up, made friends, was educated well and trained in the art of sailing. He found a woman he loved – he still does – and had a son with her. He grew up happily, in safety and peace, just like you wanted him to." The sailor inhaled deeply, preparing himself mentally for what he was about to say next. The cell was wrapped in complete silence, though Goku could make out the small rattling noise of chains, moved by shaking hands.

"Go on," the other man urged. He had a hard time believing what this Son Goku was telling him, that his youngest son had survived.

"But no one told him about his heritage. After the man who had raised him died, the General took him in and kept quiet about his birthright. He only found out a short time ago, more through accident when suddenly three Saiyajins had appeared on the doorsteps of the place he had been sent to for protection and one of them, Radditz, recognized him as his presumed dead brother. Due to this incident the General was forced to reveal the truth and told him the name of his father, Bardock, and his own birth name, Kakarotto – and the story behind his father's motives of sending him away."

"Oh dear Lord… how… how is he? How did he take the news?"

"He was furious," Goku told him further, well remembering the feelings that were running through his body that day. "He didn't want to accept this, but soon he learned new things about the Saiyajins, things that changed his view of this race and things about his father, but still he'd never thought that only a few days later he would meet the man that had risked his own life to give him one."

Now that he had finished his small story, Goku looked at the other man in the cell, the man that seemed to be his father, and waited, feeling the man's eyes burning right through him. "Kakarotto?"

"Yes, I've been told that this is the name I've been given at birth… and that you, Bardock, are my father."

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I know, I'm evil to stop at this point, but it has already taken too long for me to finish this chapter and I didn't want to let you any longer… But I must say that I don't know when I'll be able to post the next chapter since my boyfriend is taking up most of the free-time that I usually used for writing. I hope you understand that!

Eternally yours

ChibiChibi