Yo! Son Goku and friends! Saiyan Saga (Chapter 3)
Piccolo
The beam struck true and pierced Raditz and his brother Kakarot flawlessly. The pair flopped onto the ground with a potent thud. Piccolo's face was beaming at the occasion. The Demon laughed heartily as he strolled up to the bodies with pride.
"How do you like that, Son Goku!? I've won!" The Green Man screamed proudly, his single fist clenched with pride.
"Thank you... Piccolo." Is all Goku got out before his wounds overtook him, the gaping hole in his chest bleeding and spilling his innards outward in a gross mess.
The Demon was at a loss, Goku's words had touched his cold heart somehow. The feeling of accomplishment was taken away the second Goku had stopped moving. Melancholy sweeped into Piccolo's being in its stead. Piccolo's smile turned into a frown as he stared at the limp body.
"Heh-heh… Not a true Saiyan I see." Raditz somehow let out.
Piccolo looked to Raditz coldly and responded: "It appears you aren't either."
Raditz' eyes couldn't hold back his tears at his little brother's lifeless body.
"It doesn't look good for you mongrel, Goku doesn't have to share your sorry fate. His friends can wish him back with the Dragon Balls. You have no one to come save your sorry ass."
Raditz and Goku were right in front of his Saiyan pod, the left side of which had been completely destroyed by the Special Beam Cannon, luckily for him, the control panel and computer was on the right side. He crawled over one fraction and typed something into the system before Piccolo stopped him.
"Nu-uh." Piccolo stated solemnly, shaking his head.
KRAKK!
He had caved in Raditz' head with a sturdy palm strike, killing the weakened warrior.
"DADDY!" Gohan cried strongly, his ki bursting at the seams at the sight of his bloody father.
Piccolo's brow flexed curiously at the child's strength, and the strong aura he let off for someone so young. Piccolo looked back at what Raditz had done while he was in his pod.
Caulifla
You finally got time off? Jealous.
Yeah I'm using it to travel and find my youngest brother
Neat
I'm headed off to Planet Shamo, good luck with your brother Raditz
Thank you Caulifla
Earth can grant wishes
Piccolo knew he had cut the text short by pressuring Raditz and paid the last message no mind. He turned around sharply to attend to the wailing child.
"You feeling sorry for yourself!?" He shouted to the little boy.
"What…?"
"Your father fought to protect you, you should feel strength from his sacrifice, not weakness."
Gohan was very impressionable and his underdeveloped brain was capable of receiving the large Green Man's telepathy. The words were harsh but it somehow felt good hearing them, Gohan understanding the concept more easily as if the strange purple clothed man was offering up the knowledge directly into his head. Gohan looked around because it felt unnatural yet natural in occurrence. Piccolo smirked wide.
"You can hear me, can't you son of Son Goku?" He spoke with no mouth movements.
"Your mouth." Gohan wondered back to Piccolo as he pointed.
"Your mouth's not moving either kid."
"It's not?" Gohan looked perplexed beyond belief.
"..."
"Why is my dad lying on the ground?"
"He passed away fighting Raditz."
Gohan's grief struck even sharper, Piccolo's telepathy granted Gohan the conceptual awareness he was lacking. Tears flew out of him in a rage and the ground crackled in his wake. Piccolo's eyes teared up for a moment, Gohan's sorrow bleeding back into him telepathically. He had no inkling that telepathy was this strong and held back a whimper. Wiping his eyes Piccolo spoke to the child with vigour.
"Anger gives you strength Gohan, harness it!"
The ground cracked and splintered at the child's ki. Gohan's hair sparked gold for even longer this time, catching Piccolo's attention. The intense lashback of the ki blew Gohan away, his own energy was far stronger than his little boy body could contain. Piccolo's brow raised again and he smiled.
"Who the hell is this kid? He has the potential to become a demon with that kind of power." He thought to himself wickedly. "He's still young, I could change him to an unstoppable killing machine and then Goku could stand no chance." His thoughts flared dramatic for a moment, and then chilled out when he thought of his rival.
"Ahehh~" The young kid whimpered on the ground, grabbing onto the loose grass.
"I care no longer for domination." Piccolo stopped in thought. "Goku was my only goal until today and I surpassed it… What do I do now?"
The son of Son Goku scrambled to get up from out of the ground as streams of liquid came down his face in a waterfall. Piccolo thought of Gohan and reassessed.
"If there's foes that dangerous out there that means I have to get much stronger if I want to maintain my distance from Goku. He's not the type to give up so easily so I've got to get even sharper. My skills were good enough today, but will they be the next time I see him? And who is Frieza?"
Piccolo's telepathy caught a few names while fighting Raditz: Caulifla, Bardock, Turles, Lord Frieza and Emperor Cold. Frieza and Turles caught Piccolo's attention the most as Raditz had stronger feelings on those two names in particular. He had no idea just how much stronger he would need to become in order to outpace the name he had just recalled. Frieza's battle power before golden form clocked in at 574,000 and his only maxed out at 600 at this point. The reality was that Piccolo had nowhere to go yet and needed to find a new lease on how to live. That battle was the most fun Piccolo ever had and unbeknownst to him, he would come to be enamored with crafting a gameplan to defeat strong opponents. His true calling was strategy and that would be his lease on life for all 962 years he would end up living. He would need to become brilliant in order to defeat two different Gods in his lifetime.
"Lord Beerus, the one you liked just died."
"Don't care."
"Ah-hem."
Vegeta
The wind blew with solemn energy as two men meandered across the burning landscape. There were two Saiyans, one very large and one smaller than average leading the pair. The leader was wearing the Saiyan armour but each black section was replaced with white. They walked for a while before the one wearing white happened upon a green scouter.
"Hmm." The small man let out.
"Who's is it, Vegeta?" The larger man questioned.
Vegeta pressed on the scouter a few times and placed it over his right eye. After scanning the details and messages he responded:
"Looks like Caulifla's. Apparently she just got a message from Raditz. Do you know anything about Earth, Nappa?"
"No, not a thing."
"Apparently it can grant wishes, I call bullshit but we could at least go and try to see if Raditz has sold it or not and maybe get a cut."
Nappa nodded at the notion.
"I'll take this with me." Vegeta articulated as he shuffled Caulifla's item into a pocket under his Saiyan armour.
All of the Cold Estate is required to wear a scouter at all times so that they can receive messages from their lord, Frieza. Only royalty is allowed to wear scouters on their left eye, everyone else must wear it on their right to distinguish the common born. The only royalty in the Cold Estate at the moment is Emperor Cold, Lord Frieza, King and Prince Vegeta, as well as Captain Ginyu. Ginyu is not royalty but Lord Frieza has dubbed him into the highest position of his army due to his faith in Ginyu's abilities and proven loyalty. Cooler was supposed to be next in line for the throne of the Cold Estate but left on bad terms with Emperor Cold, his whereabouts are unknown to them.
"Not me though. He's studying philosophy on Namek."
"Ah-hem."
"Getting leave is going to be a pain. Is it worth going after Earth just to have Frieza look at our request for who knows how long?"
Nappa let out a long and heavy sigh at the prince's question, rubbing the top of his shiny bald head.
"Vegeta. Ehhh, we've got fucking nothing here."
"I know that better than anyone, Nappa."
"Those fuckers sitting on the throne get to decide our fates, one dumb chance on a whim is better than sitting under Frieza's boot. Even if Earth doesn't grant wishes and it was just a figure of speech, I don't want to grow their empire any larger."
"For once, your smooth brain is thinking on the same wavelength as mine Nappa."
Nappa perked up at the insult, and smiled with legitimacy.
"One thing does concern me though, Nappa, what if Raditz' sibling had offspring? What if Earth supports life forms similar to ours? I don't know much about Earth, it could also be a chance for us to sow our seed on another planet."
"We'll have to check the database but Raditz' brother was probably sent there due to a quick moon cycle. So we'll start there."
Vegeta nodded at the assertion.
"Anything's better than lifting a finger in the name of our lord. Fuck Frieza."
"Fuuuuuuck Frieza." Nappa let out in a long and aggressive manner.
The pair walked back to their Saiyan pods, a bit of wind in their sails as they had at least one objective to themselves. The pods opened up and Vegeta piled in his, flopping down comfortably. Searing low red light bathed the young Saiyan warmly, the seat a comfortable velvet lining.
"Navigation!"
"Yes Prince!"
"Set course for C.O.1! Message Lord Frieza this: Prince Vegeta is requesting an audience."
"Right away Prince!"
"Hmmph." He grunted out with what seemed to be halfway between a smirk and a frown. "Lick my balls Frieza, I know you're gonna sit on my time off like it matters."
"Prince, would you like for me to send that to Lord Frieza as well!?"
"No."
Frieza
The halls were a stark and clean white, chrome finishes on anything that wasn't. A regal but shorter figure walked with pride and arrogance, its arms behind its back in a display of eloquence and unbotheredness. The figure's white tail wavered ever so slightly as it made its way through the hall. There was a calculated coldness and bothered energy to the white being.
"Lord Frieza!" A man in the Cold Estate uniform kneeled, his arm placed over his chest.
"At ease, I've no need for you to bend your knees at this time. I'm in a good mood."
"Excellent sir." He stood up and delivered a salute instead as Frieza walked by.
Frieza had purple gem-like body parts that attached to his crown, solar plexus, shoulders, forearms, and shins. They shone very brightly at all times, reflecting the harsh lights of the hallway in a glittering beauty. He strolled the walkway casually for a while before coming into view of a room labeled:
Command Centre
A man with blonde floofy hair and blue skin awaited Frieza in the doorway, he had a yellow scouter on his right eye.
"A messej fou yoo has come in Lor Frieza."
"What are we looking at Salza, I assume you have my best interests in mind."
"The prince is louking fou yoo. He requests an audienz, shall we make arrainjmenz?"
"Why not?" Frieza responded, chipper, a large toothy grin on his face.
Salza nodded at Frieza and turned around to message back Vegeta, typing into a pad-like object.
"Salza."
"Yezzir?"
"Tell Vegeta to hurry his ass up, I want to talk to him too."
"Right awei."
Frieza breathed out an elegant sigh and walked forward to the large window, staring out of the glassy dome of the command centre, the planets and stars offering a beautiful view. He looked around like a child would, enamoured with the vastness of it all.
"I wish I could have been the one to conquer it…" He sighed to himself solemnly. "Father's ambition set me up for life and I should be grateful for it… But I would have liked to do it myself."
Turles
The fog was immense, practically impossible to see through. Turles had a bored and annoyed look about him, his walk was pompous and rigid.
"Great. Absolutely fan-fucking-tastic. I go all the way out to this shit hole to clean it up and someone's already had all the fun!? Where the fuck is everybody!? Appule, come in!" Turles phoned the line on his scouter to one of his squadmates on Acrose.
"Yes captain?"
"You or the crew found anyone?"
"No sir, just these big roots and tree stems, these things are massive, boss. And they seem to be leading to the same place."
"You've got them over there too?" Turles asked with uncertainty.
"Yea, I've never seen anything so strange in my life, these roots are everywhere. It's getting harder to breathe, captain, should we go back for our helmets?"
Turles contemplated for a moment.
"Affirmative, go ahead and meet back up on my location with the ship while you're at it."
"Yes sir."
Turles stayed walking on the ground as flying through the air made it even more difficult to see. Turles launched out ki blasts here and there to part the fog and soon enough came upon where all the roots led to, for whatever reason the fog cleared around the tree and wrapped around everything else. His eyes widened to their extremes, almost falling out of their sockets. His scouter blitzed numbers like crazy before exploding off his right eye.
Bom!
"What the hell!? What is this thing!? The scouter couldn't even comprehend it. It has a battle power? The scouter was trying to read its energy and failed?" Turles was at a complete loss for words, this discovery was totally unknown to him.
Turles searched high and low around the tree only to find fruits and seeds hanging at the very apex of its enormous stature. He snatched one of the fruits and examined it. It was an ethereal orange and had spikes on it, something from beyond compelled the anxious Saiyan to chomp down on it like he hadn't eaten for weeks.
Kronch!
It was sweet, then bitter with a little hint of spice. Turles' mouth watered at the taste, nothing in his whole life had ever tasted so good and he hated sweets.
"My god…" He barely gasped out as if the fruit had stolen all of his breath.
What Turles had stumbled upon that day was the Tree of Might. Legends across Acrose stated that the Tree of Might would grant one man the power of infinity at the cost of the planet's destruction. No one had ever known whether the legend was real or not until 3 days previously when they planted the seed they found in vault number 7. The people of Acrose had discovered the seed in year 21 of their planet's existence. They planted the seed and watched it carefully that day and feared its power as only 20 minutes later it had grown into a small tree. They cut it down early and had saved their people from an early grave, but alas, their grave would be dug in Age 761, 740 years later. No one was left alive on Acrose to tell the story.
Turles' breaths got shaky, the Tree of Might draining the last little bit of Planet Acrose's breathable air into its being. He went and stuffed a few more fruits and seeds into the pockets of his Saiyan armour.
"Huu~hahhhh… Huuuuuugh…" Turles could barely breathe anymore, his vision blurred and he blacked out.
He woke up a while later in the ship with an oxygen mask on his mouth.
"Wha…" Turles said somewhat unconsciously.
"Hey there Captain, we found the fruits in your pocket. That tree was huge, do you think that tree had anything to do with what happened?"
"Don' fu-... Appule... I can't…" Turles let out, his head spinning, the bright lights of the ship not making it any better.
"Of course, Captain."
He layed back down, grabbing his forehead and closing his eyes. Appule stood up from his squatting position in front of Turles.
"So what's the move, boys? Do we go and see if there are any more trees on Acrose, or do we just call it quits?"
The small ship was quiet for a moment before a blue man who resembled Appule somewhat with an elongated head spoke up from what seemed to be the pilot's chair and control panel.
"Well I think the ship's only detecting one life force on the entire planet and I think that's the tree, so I don't really know what else we'd find out there."
Appule nodded at the assertion.
"Banan?" He motioned to the other crewmate in the ship.
"I guess we're out of here." Banan shrugged his shoulders. "I wonder what these fruits are? And the intel said that Acrose had intelligent life forms so what went wrong? This form was sent out to Turles' father not even three days ago."
"What strikes me Banan, is that Turles' battle power rose an entire thousand units since we saw him last." Appule whispered lowly.
The Tree of Might was some of the strongest flora in the universe, capable of increasing the strength, vigour, youth, and ki potential of anyone who consumed its fruits. In just one serving its fruit had turned Turles battle power from 7,200 to 8,200 clean. Turles was going to use this revelation for his own plans.
Turles' eyes opened sharply as malicious ideas tore across his mind:
"With these fruits I can usurp The Cold Throne! It took me 30 years to get this strong and these fruits can take me past my limits that quickly!?" Turles sat up and questioned loudly. "Is my battle power really that much higher!?"
"Uhhh…" Appule let out dumbly. "Let me double check."
He pressed the large red button on his blue scouter. It beeped and settled on Turles' newfound power.
"Yep, the scouter registers your power at 8,200 units. I think it mi-"
"I can't let anyone know about the fruit!" Is all that played in Turles' mind.
He cut off Appule sharply with a right straight launched directly at his jaw. Appule's face distorted and he slammed into the ship wall, denting it from the insane force.
THMM~GWONKK!
"What the hell Turles!?" Appule screamed. The pilot looked back at the trio in disbelief.
Turles' red scouter shined blood crimson as if it agreed with his lust for this strength these strange fruits could give him. He launched at Appule, stealing back the seeds and fruit from his armour.
"I've got ambition now Appule, and I don't see you anywhere in my plans!" He yelled right in his face, smiling devilishly all the while.
Turles conjured an orange ring of death right onto Appule's chest, it squeaked and churned in a circle like metal getting welded before blowing up in a miraculous display, shooting Appule into the unknown of Acrose and wrecking half of the ship.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Sk-KOFFFFFFFFFFF!
"TURLES!" Banan screamed in horror, putting up his guard and generating ki.
His blood red scouter bipped and alerted him to Banan's energy.
"Sorry B-boy, but you're not coming with me either!" He screamed in response, throwing a knee strike with his whole body.
Banan was prepared and so dodged out of the way, backpedaling to the back door of the ship.
"Berry!" Banan yelled loudly to the pilot.
Berry put it on autopilot and got out of his seat immediately, firing a ki blast at the back of Turles.
"These damn Saiyans…" Berry grunted aloud as he fired. "These fuckers always gotta ruin everything!" He threw a right roundhouse at Turles' midsection.
Turles blocked effortlessly with his right forearm in a backhand motion, still maintaining eye contact with Banan. The Saiyan stomped forward and launched a mean haymaker hook at Banan, his wild swing being ducked easily. Banan regrouped onto Berry with the dodge and the two attacked as a unit at their former squad leader.
Turles' increase in power allowed him to block and parry their dual layered attack with some success, some attacks slipping through and catching him in the face.
"You're really killing my vibe right now boys!" He yelled loudly, it really seemed like his scouter choice was the correct colour for how brightly it shined in tandem with his outbursts.
Turles' fist slammed deep into Berry's armour, causing a dull thud to ring out. The Cold Estate armour was very durable however and Berry traded shot for shot, landing one on his opponent's cheek. Turles grunted in frustration.
"His tail!" Berry commanded.
"Right!" Banan complied with confidence.
"No you don't!" Turles spun around and aimed a wicked right backfist at Banan, coming into contact with him and throwing the blue skinned and previous squad member for a loop. He slid across the ship floor.
Berry didn't waste his chance and grappled right onto Turles' tail he exposed during the maneuver.
"Ergh!" He squealed like a wounded animal, gritting his teeth hard.
Saiyan's tails are their weak point, it's almost like being tickled, only much worse. It's said that only royal blooded Saiyans can get over their aversion of having their tails grabbed.
"That's just what I've heard, I'm not sure of how much of it is true of course. Those Saiyans in universe 6 could just be yanking my chain for all I know."
"This boba is really good Beerus, you want to try some?"
"I'd rather be dead than drink a boba that had your fruity lips all over it."
"Suit yourself."
"Ah-hem."
Banan wiped the blood off his lips and stood up, Berry having Turles' tail in a vice grip causing the previously rambunctious Saiyan to struggle and vibrate like he was having a stroke. His veins popped out like they needed to evacuate immediately. He used all of his power to lift the fruit in his left hand to his mouth and chomped down like god had stated him to do so.
Kronch! Gulp!
Turles' power surged again and the Saiyan's ki blew back Berry off of his tail in a blazing impact. His muscles pulsated at the new energy he just obtained. He downed the rest of the fruit in a hurry, much to Banan's dismay.
"It was the fruit!" Banan whimpered out in shock, falling onto his butt.
"It's MY fruit, Banan! The Tree of Might spoke to me! I am it's disciple!"
As Turles bellowed out his speech Banan saw a mighty Oozaru roar and punch onto its chest in his last moments before Turles tore off his head with a clenched fist in a drive-by motion.
The Tree of Might was known as The Tree of Ruin on Acrose, but Acrose's people had no claim to the namesake anymore.
"Have you gone mad Turles!?"
"The Saiyans are true warriors, Berry! We won't sit twiddling our thumbs while those smooth skinned pricks subjugate our people! You, Appule, and Banan might have enjoyed licking between the toes of Lord Frieza but I won't stand for it anymore, not when the gift of god is staring me right in the eyes! The Tree of Might is calling my name, not yours!" Turles blurted out before blowing his only adversary left to dust in a magnificent orange ki blast.
"You'll rue the day you put your boots on our backs, Emperor Cold. You and your son better enjoy it while it lasts!" Turles spoke only to strengthen his resolve, as anyone who could hear him was already dead.
Turles was filled with elation and resolve as the oxygen was slowly pulled outside of the ship. He grabbed a mask off the wall and filed into the pilot seat with vigour. He breathed in deep and blasted away from Planet Acrose, his maniacal laughter spreading through the stars.