Disclaimer, in case it wasn't obvious. I don't own Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, or really any other property. Thank you.

The Cataylst

Act IV

Chapter 52: Steps

Raditz: One Year One Month Later

With his arms crossed, Raditz stared at the blurs of motion in front of him. Third place, that was what it was to be training here. The strangest thing was the inclusion of so many of the Earthlings themselves with their sparring and training. The humans clearly couldn't keep up, not with any of the major players here, and Kakarot's boy struggled to keep up himself, but there were important lessons he'd learned over the last year dueling with these talented fighters. They knew how to fight a much stronger opponent, and forestall the inevitable, or even pull an upset.

The three-eyed human had even managed to defeat an untransformed Kakarot earlier. Of the strongest fighters here, only the Namekian never lost to an inferior fighter. Piccolo had found a way to defeat him on Earth several years prior, and he'd been the one to defeat two of Frieza's forms, and had managed to be the main force keeping Nappa at bay before he and Kakarot's arrival. Of all of them, Kakarot and the Namek were the most obviously talented.

But third place wasn't a terrible place to be. Raditz's own strength had increased immensely over the last year. Kakarot, the Namekian, and himself trained without the boy or the others after the others had finished. The most exciting moments were trying to fight a way to overwhelm Kakarot's Super Saiyan form, something that he and the Namekian would work together to achieve. They'd not come close yet, but the strain of those battles could only make him stronger. Increasingly, Raditz believed the goal could be achieved.

The goal of becoming a Super Saiyan, like Kakarot. The horizon was so distant it felt like it could never be reached, but when Kakarot's body lit up with golden fire, he could imagine himself arriving at such a destination in due time. When they'd first met, Kakarot was less than a third of the warrior he was, but he had the mind of a warrior above his station. Adaptable and unrelenting, that brain carried him through to victory against any opponent.

That kind of mindset was something you were born with. But Raditz could learn, and he was learning a great deal.

"I'm still a bit surprised Tien managed to pull off that win against Goku the other day," Piccolo admitted from beside him, his arms crossed. "I hope you took notes."

The two warriors in front of him clashed again in a blur of motion as Kakarot and Tien crashed against one another once again, this time the human getting the worst of the duel and being kicked head first into the ground.

"He's not trying the same approach as the previous battle against Kakarot, the one that was successful," Raditz observed. "When he'd had one of his duplicates lure Kakarot in, making himself look depleted."

The Namekian didn't say a word, but Raditz didn't need to hear the words to know the answer for himself. Tien knew the same trick wouldn't work twice on Kakarot. That was the real strength his brother possessed. He couldn't be brought into the same technique twice, at least not the same way. And this time Tien didn't have a trick up his sleeve.

The human's body pulled itself up out of the crater it'd made on the ground, his body sweating as Kakarot landed in front of him.

"He's finished," Piccolo commented.

"Good try, Tien. You almost had me a second time there," Kakarot laughed. "Man, you and Krillin have really been putting some crazy effort into this. It's great that I'm learning a lot from you guys."

Reaching out, he grasped the warrior's arm and pulled up him, smiling and nodding towards him before gesturing to Radtiz and Piccolo.

"Hey, you guys wanna take centre stage this time? And try not to destroy a whole mountain this time."

A smirk crossed the Namekian's face before he cracked his neck to one side.

"No promises."

Raditz's own grin matched. The Namek was a tough adversary. He'd come up with several plans on how to deal with Piccolo. The only problem was getting him to drop his guard. If he could get past Piccolo's defence, he might have a chance with his latest technique. It was all about the opening. Closing one fist instinctively, he eyed the Namek before starting to walk towards where Kakarot and Tien had been standing several moments earlier. Giving a look towards the onlookers, Raditz gave Gohan a half smirk, before turning his attention to Piccolo.

There was a flash of power half way across the world, appearing and disappearing like a beacon. It was almost uncomfortable. They all felt it. Goku himself seemed distracted the most by it, placing his fingers to his forehead and disappearing. Before training stated, Raditz dropped his stance and looked back towards the other fighters.

"Whatever he's been doing the last year, his power has definitely been growing," Krillin's voice chimed in nervously. "And Goku can never track him down after the power spike. He's keeping his power level suppressed almost entirely outside of these outbursts."

"Don't let that idiot distract you for the moment," Piccolo interjected. "He's not invincible anymore. We don't even need him. If he causes trouble, Goku, myself, or Raditz can stop him."

Goku could definitely stop him. The Namek and himself? He could imagine a fight, most definitely. But those flashes of power left him nervous. They outshined any output either he, or Piccolo had demonstrated. It was much, much closer in line with Kakarot's strength, barring the Super Saiyan transformation.

Those single burst… are him trying to replicate Kakarot's spike in power, before he transformed into a Super Saiyan.

Raditz hadn't seen Turles in a year now. They hadn't spoken at all. When Turles finally got his Senzu bean and was allowed to slink off, he'd recovered from serious injuries, which Raditz knew would feed his power. But beyond that, they had no conversations. There were no words exchanged between the two of them. It was as if Turles had died. Only for his ghost to appear every few weeks in the form of a massive power spike, and then nothing. The fact even Kakarot couldn't find him only seconds after the bursts, meant he knew what he was doing.

It made him nervous. Turles never took orders well. There was a part of him who was now very much concerned that his other brother's vengeance would be something he'd want to visit on all of them. The disdain he showed him at the prospect of him having been given a last chance said it all.

Kakarot reappeared a few seconds later.

"Did you see him?" Gohan's voice perked up, though clearly with a different tone than everyone else.

His other brother looked far more serious than he had even while fighting Tien, before looking at him, and then Piccolo, clearly delivering that again, there was no sign of him at all.

"Just some destroyed fields from where whatever it is went off."

"He's not going to reappear until he becomes a Super Saiyan," Piccolo remarked. "That's what he's trying to scrape towards. You can feel the anger and hate in those outbursts. Once he does, he's going to come looking for you Goku. That's when everyone can be concerned."

"We don't know that, Piccolo," Gohan spoke up. "He's not perfect, but we don't know anything for sure. He saved me from Vegeta, and he saved everyone from Frieza. He even fought Frieza when he first got back to Earth. And he helped us with the Ginyus!"

The Namek was right, and both he, and Kakarot knew it as well. Raditz did have a small glimmer of hope that perhaps it wasn't what the Namekian feared. But the more rational side of him knew the truth.

The only thing worse than Turles becoming a Super Saiyan, would be Vegeta becoming a Super Saiyan, in his eyes.

"We've got training to do. The Androids aren't going to defeat themselves," Piccolo's voice came up once again, ignoring Gohan's remark.

Turning back towards his adversary, Raditz honed his power immediately as a red-white aura burst around his body. Bits of the ground beneath him began to trickle into the sky as Piccolo's own aura, burning an intense white, began to come to life. The trees and grass around them began to pick up in a whirlwind as the intensity of the power around them began to multiply.

"Are you going to make the same mistake last time?" Piccolo asked him, before smirking. "That knockout was too easy."

"It'll be the last time I stop attacking just because you lose a limb, green man," Raditz growled before launching himself forward.

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Vegeta:

Since the humiliating battle across this wretched human city, Vegeta had found himself bound to this rock in exchange for the gravity room. It'd been strange to be in one place so long. When in space, there was no home base. You operated out of different Frieza facilities when you were in proximity to your target planet, and then moved on. It was just a constant move. There was a constant change of persons around you, and the only constants were your team, or officers above you in the company.

This place was a strange place, with familiar people constantly around him. The woman and her parents, and an assortment of staff and employees. Kakarot was another one whose face appeared around here when it wasn't welcome. The human Yamcha had been here until a few months earlier, clearly being mostly drawn for reproductive purposes, or his own self interest. It was unnatural to seemingly have roots somewhere.

Turning his head, he saw the woman sleeping on her bed, her face half in a pillow. An irritated nerve struck in his own body at the sight. This was an example of poor decision making, on both their parts. It didn't really matter to him in the long run. It was fulfilling a physical need and little else. Examining the mind of the erratic woman wasn't something he was particularly keen on. But it was something he couldn't help but touch on when he stared at her. He knew full well that she didn't feel safe, especially after Namek and her less than stellar defense of her home from Kakarot's brother. Even if it was something he wouldn't care to admit out loud, he knew she felt safe when around him, even after he'd threatened her repeatedly.

These Earthlings are ridiculous. A creature of such nonsense.

Much as he'd done after their last few encounters, and there had been very few of them, Vegeta grabbed his uniform, slipping it on as the sun came up behind him. Opening the door to her balcony, he just leaped off, before walking towards the space craft and its gravity chamber. The image of the purple haired boy who'd become a Super Saiyan and was crushed by Frieza's brother, etched in his mind for a brief moment.

Pathetic. Isn't it? That miserable pile of bleeding was my son. The only thing that proves it is the fact he survived without my help.

As he approached the ship, he could see Freiza's face staring back at him with the kind of amusement he always had when he'd failed in the past. Or when he'd been given ridiculous, humiliating tasks.

"You know Vegeta, you really do need to improve. Even a monkey should have been abled to destroy that planet in four days. But a week? You're so sloppy."

Gritting his teeth, Vegeta hit the button, almost too hard, for the ship's door to open. As it dropped in front of him, he could already feel the anger from everything he'd been confronted with filling his blood. Being upstaged by Kakarot and his brat… being humiliated by Turles twice, being held down by Frieza for his entire life… his future son being a Super Saiyan, but a useless one.

I am not going to make the same mistakes. I am not going to fail.

As the room turned red, Vegeta's blue aura caught fire around him as he clenched his teeth. This room hurt him, but the pain helped him purge himself of his weakness. Just as he was going to keep himself clean of the weaknesses he could acquire from this world. He'd already resolved to not care about the woman's fate, or that of some future boy he had. His only desire, his only care, had to be his own power.

There was a flash of power in the distance, he could sense it spike out of nowhere. Again, it happened every few weeks, and he could tell the source. The coward would go back into hiding any moment anyway. But it left him with an irritating task. He actually had to bother to sense what was happening outside of this capsule.

What a waste of my time.

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Raditz:

When his body crashed into the ground, Raditz felt himself almost snap. Again, the Namekian managed to outdo him again. Flipping up to his feet, Raditz felt his teeth almost grinding as he stared around for where he'd gone. After almost twenty minutes of sparring he'd thought he'd had his opening, and it'd just lead to him getting his head almost smashed in. Energy wrapped around his body as Raditz's anger spiked. Training or not, he was not pleased by what had just befallen his plan. For once he was going to outdo the green man.

Where did you go?

In a blur of motion in front of him, Raditz readied his newest attack, preparing to launch it into his opponent. Rearing back as his power focused into his right hand, red lightning crackled around his arm. The moment he did, he was exposed. The motion in front of him only became obvious as he reared back, and he saw the Namek's form sweep into him. When Piccolo's heel hit his jaw, Raditz felt the world spin inside his head and without. Any semblance of where he was, or balance, vanished in the blow as his body toppled backwards, hitting the ground behind him before sliding to his defeat.

Trying to get back up, he managed to half sit before all the power in his form gave out, and he flopped back, his arms, hair, and body splayed out shamefully before the planet's sky. Even breathing was hard he realized, as his chest painfully rose and fell. Cognitive thought was everywhere, visions of his past danced before his eyes, in bizarre parodies of what they were, distorted. When he finally came to, he noticed everyone was looking down at him.

"Looks like Piccolo got you again, huh?" Krillin chimed in.

"I'll fight you next, bald man," Raditz mumbled. "Then we'll see how tough you are… or how about you fight him?"

Raditz's words cut as Krillin nervously scratched the back of his bald head.

"Well, uh, I think you did pretty good! I mean, you definitely did-"

"I'd stop digging that hole Krillin, I think it's getting kinda deep," Goku chuckled, before grabbing his arm and helping him sit up.

"You definitely were looking for a weakness in that fight," Piccolo remarked. "You almost had me to. If I didn't know better, I'd have said you were almost attacking me with the same kind of tenacity Goku does."

A humph left Raditz before he started to push himself up.

"But dropping your guard at the end, all for one big attack? Doesn't seem worth it when you can't pin your opponent down."

"I wanted to try an experiment," Raditz admitted. "I couldn't get the opening. I thought you'd be too busy dodging to go for the kill. I should have known better."

Looking down at his torn training clothes, he had to admit, he really hated human training attire. He'd kill for a set of Planet Trade Armour and attire right now.

"I think we're done for today, I wanna call it early. Chi-Chi keeps bugging me about something called an Anniversary," he remarked. "I don't get it. But it usually means she expects me to bring her a present, and then I get sex later."

That wasn't something Raditz himself totally understand. An anniversary? What did that even mean? Was it some celebration? He could see the shamed and disappointed look on his nephew's face as he covered it with his hand. The Namekian seemed to just stand there awkwardly, and the other human fighters were trying not to laugh.

He presumed, that Kakarot had just shamed himself in some way.

It only took fifteen minutes to land back at his brother's home when he took a moment to pause.

"These Androids," he remarked. "Did these people from the future say exactly how powerful they were?"

Goku stopped before entering the door before he smiled and looked back at him.

"Apparently strong enough to beat any Super Saiyan that they've ever seen. I'm actually really excited."

A brow twitched on Raditz's forehead at the remark, before his brother disappeared.

Standing out there with the Namekian and his nephew, he crossed his arms.

"Aren't you going to go inside, kid?"

"I figure I'll give it a minute. Mom's going to be mad we're late. And I don't think Dad got her a present."

"What is this anniversary thing?" Raditz asked, his brow raising again. "Is it some kind of important mating thing for humans?"

"It's the… well, it's the same day on the calendar year, that they got married. It's meant to be an important day for them. Like a birthday."

"Birthday? As in, you celebrate the day of your birth? Why?"

"Nevermind."

He found his thoughts driving away from the subject in hand, to the one person on the surface of this planet he hated more than anyone.

Vegeta.

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Author's Notes:

Alright. Where do we go from here? First, I'm going to let everyone know, I have, as of this writing, up to Chapter 62 finished, for The Catalyst. I spent almost all my free time writing during my vacation, and am hoping that the Saga is finished by Chapter 63. We're not in the Android Saga… I really, really put a lot into this Saga, and intend to trickle it out starting after this update, on a weekly and bi-weekly basis depending on if I can keep up a several chapter buffer. I am however going to be working on the next update for The Long Road, after I finish Chapter 63 (the end of the current Saga).

This saga makes me really anxious honestly. It's been a while since I consistently wrote The Catalyst, and some of the concepts were things I really wanted to do for a while. Raditz, Turles, and Piccolo have a lot of great spots, and Goku and Vegeta get more than their share of good moments.

It's a lot about reflection and empathy, and I really hope people dig it.

I really do hope everyone had a great holiday, and I hope that people drop the story reviews. I do know the reader-base for The Catalyst a lot smaller than The Long Road's is, but I am trying to give some quality updates for this story and hope people enjoy them. To the new readers who've started reading since this story's been getting updates again, thanks! I appreciate it!

Oh, and don't miss "Chapter 53: The Catalysts". It's got a pretty huge moment in it…

Reviewers:

BladesofFury: Answered by PM

Kacarrot: Answered by PM.

MaxrideLover: Thanks!

Super Mystic Gohan: Even with all the character development in the world, I don't think its possible for Turles to not be a douchebag on some level. Lol

Luke: I appreciate it Luke. You've been reading my stuff for years. It's been great to have you along for the ride. I hope my stories have improved for you since you started reviewing. 😊

Thomas-The-TMC: Yea, it's pretty devastated to see what Bulma gets put through in the future. And I promise, it doesn't get less devastating in this timeline either 😉

DarkFalconZ: I'm trying to. :O

OuterspaceHooker: Spoiled rotten.

Pyromania101: I think I misspoke. The Android Saga is mostly about Raditz, though he plays a big role in the Saga we're currently in. Because guess what boyz? It's the **** Saga now. :O

Anonymous: Turles definitely can still train, and is definitely motivated at the moment, as demonstrated in this chapter. Turles and Kakarot's relationship in a lot of ways is modelled after Piccolo and Kami's. They were at one point, the same being. I based Turles off his original concept (which is "Kakarot", tree of might had a really messy production), so there is always a good chance of them being close to one another in power. Raditz catching up with the others might be possible, but I'm just not sure he can do it. He's fundamentally just not as strong as Vegeta, Turles, or Kakarot. Which isn't a bad thing… The Android Saga is really his Saga, as well as the part before it (not the Slug Saga). Oh, and I use a tier-based system for most of my stories. I'll give a bit more data here and say in this order, the Earth fighters go:

Goku, Turles, Vegeta/Piccolo, Raditz, Tien/Krillin, Yamcha.

ABCD: Thanks for the review. That is true. I try not to get too stuck in on power levels anymore. I focus more on a tier-based system. Multipliers and what not just try to 'science' something that's really not grounded in science, which is one reason why AT abandoned them after the Frieza Saga.

TheSeaCat: I think I answered by PM.

Karina: Which one's your favourite chapter? In The Catalyst, my personal favourite is Chapter 62. Oh, that's not out yet… out of what's out, my favourite is Chapter 20, personally.

JohnMeils: Nope. This story's older than Xenoverse, and was basically fully plotted out about 1-2 years before Xenoverse 1 was even released. I was actually inspired by people making Raditz stories that I didn't think were very good. Most of my stories are based off Tropes or concepts that I thought don't get done in a way I like. It's not taking away from other people, I've had some great times reading fanfiction in the same tropes, but I just get my own approach and feel the desire to write it.

Cyberas: We all are. Am I right?!

KFC: Thnx

Proman1398: Answered by PM.

Laydee2slow: Answered by PM.