DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything in this story except Matronene. That's enough for me. Arigatou for reading!
The four of them put their ships into a sort of 'neutral' mode so that they would stay in the same place until they came back and left. It had stopped snowing and they walked forward through it. At one point, Raditz fell straight through and smashed into the hard, ice-covered ground at the end of the hole.
"Dammit," he muttered, flying upward again.
Matronene and Nappa were laughing loudly at him, and he glared at them, but Vegeta only closed his eyes and half-smiled at his partner's stupidity and antics.
They continued walking forward, searching for the warmest possible place. A few times, Vegeta decided that it was just getting colder the farther they went, and had to turn around, despite the groans of the other three.
"Shut up," he would growl angrily, and continue walking.
It took hours. By the time it was dark, they still hadn't found a place to stop.
"Vegeta," Matronene whined by the time it was too dark to see. "I don't like this. Let's just stop."
"Fine, fine," Vegeta muttered. But it's still too cold here. So we can't all sleep at the same time, like I said. "We'll have to do shifts. I'll go first for four hours. Then Nappa, you can watch for four hours. Then Raditz. Then Matronene. You have to watch to make sure we aren't freezing while we sleep. Wake us up if we are. Got it?"
The three saiyans nodded. "Yes."
"Good. You three go to sleep, we're going after the people in the morning. I'll wake up Nappa."
Matronene, Nappa, and Raditz powered up and burned a whole in the snow with their ki beams. They had melted it about five feet in when they decided to stop. They laid down in the snow, very close to each other, and closed their eyes. Vegeta sat down and stared at them, watching closely. He counted the seconds and the minutes, until finally he had reached four hours.
"Thank Kami," he muttered, shaking Nappa awake. "Your turn."
Nappa got up and kept watch. It continued on like this the entire time, until finally Matronene woke them all up.
"All right, let's go," Vegeta said as soon as he stood up out of the hole of snow.
"No breakfast!" Raditz exclaimed.
"If we find food we'll eat!" snapped Vegeta, "now let's go!"
They trudged forward through the snow again, Raditz, Nappa, and Matronene all keeping a close eye out for anything to eat behind Vegeta's back. Finally, Nappa sent a ki beam up at a tree branch, shaking snow away from it, and two strange bird-like animals fell from it.
"Great," he muttered, walking over and picking it up. Raditz and Matronene leapt forward and dug through the pile of snow, looking for other animals that had been killed, and found an extra one.
"Vegeta!" Matronene called, holding up the bird. Vegeta sighed and walked forward, taking the bird from her and breaking the wing right off the body. The girl winced. He proceeded to pull all of the thick feathers off. It took quite a while actually, there were so many layers. But finally, all four saiyans were sitting and eating.
"I told you," Vegeta said to Matronene. "If you get hungry enough, you'll eat anything you can get."
Matronene sighed. "I know..." she said sadly. "But...I want to be at my best when we fight."
"Please," said Raditz. "You're just hungry."
She shrugged and took another bite.
Fifteen minutes later, they were all done and Vegeta stood up. "Let's get going again," he said. And they started walking some more. Once again, the sun had gone all the way down, and they reached a cliff. They looked down into the valley and saw lights.
"That's them," Vegeta muttered. "Let's go, and keep your eyes open."
The saiyans flew down into the valley, and when they touched down, the citizens stepped out of their homes and any other place. Nappa pulled out his scouter and put it on. The numbers started going up, and at a certain point, his eyes widened.
"What!" he muttered loudly.
"How high is it, Nappa?" Vegeta demanded.
"Three thousand! For every one of them!"
"What!" Vegeta said. He pulled out his own scouter and put it on. "You're right!" He looked around, but the number on the side of the screen didn't move. "No way."
Matronene and Raditz got into a fighting stance. Vegeta stood still, staring at the people for a moment, then got into a fighting stance as well. Nappa did too after another second of shock.
"We," Vegeta said, "have our work cut out for us. Be careful."
