CHAPTER THREE: Rebirth of Destruction
Piccolo Jr. was tired. He had honestly been tired ever since he had found himself trapped in Hell, though he was probably the denizen of the place with the best quality of life. He never found the time to meditate in peace as he often used to either on Kami's Lookout or deep in isolated deserts. The place was simply too chaotic, and there was always trouble popping up once in a while which Piccolo needed to deal with.
He had been offered a place in Heaven instead by Yemma, but that was the opposite side of the spectrum for him. There was no way he could spend an eternity in a drearily peaceful location with no action. If he was given a role similar to Pikkon's, living in Heaven but basically keeping an eye on Hell and dropping by whenever he was needed, he would consider that. But the other green warrior was absurdly strong, and Yemma would not take his position away so easily.
For the first time in a while, Piccolo felt as if some modicum of calm had descended on the place. The usual trouble makers like Frieza and his henchmen had all been smacked around by him recently, meaning they needed time to lick their wounds. Cell was the only one who really gave him trouble. The fact was that he'd been dead for nearly twenty-five years, and had had nothing to do but train. Piccolo himself had put in a lot of work since their last fight all those years ago before Cell had absorbed Android 17, but the bio-android's variety of abilities and superior fighting intellect made him a tough match. In the few cases when he did decide to break the lethargy of his current existence and cause some problems, Pikkon was always on hand to lend his fist to Piccolo's and subdue the uprising.
Piccolo sat down against a rock, and closed his eyes. No noticeable power entered his sensory gaze. Perhaps it was time for him to grab a quick rest, before the next foolish creature decided to cause some problems.
Just as he was about to doze off, he felt it. It was unmistakable.
It made him stand up stock straight, trembling with shock and disbelief. As much as he told himself he was wrong, he knew the truth. Only one energy signal felt like that.
The energy of an Eternal Dragon.
And deep down, Piccolo realized there could be only one person responsible for this. There was no one else who had the necessary knowledge.
He clenched his fist tightly enough to draw drops of purple blood from his palm.
"You decrepit old bastard, I'm not going to let you abuse the power of our people."
He let out an energy-enhanced roar as his aura boomed out around him, and he then took off in the direction of the colossal negative power.
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King Piccolo had a truly sadistic grin on his face as he held his arms out in an arrogant flourish.
Raditz was too awestruck for words at first. He couldn't stop staring at the gigantic beast that was floating above them. It radiated a type of magical energy that resembled a God, but Raditz knew no God could be so terrible in appearance and nature. Its words sounded as if they were coming directly from the mouth of the Beast itself.
The Demon King had indeed been true to his word, this beast was the key to Raditz's plan of ultimate vengeance.
King Piccolo glanced back at him. "Make your wish. As much effort as I put into this, I'm not risking myself with the power of a completely new dragon right from the get go."
He walked over to the creature and spoke harshly. Now was his time.
"Blight, for my first wish, I want you to revive the dead race of the Saiyans, but it's only the strongest and most vicious members!"
King Piccolo didn't say a word.
The dragon paused, as if contemplating the nature of the wish, and whether it was within its capabilities.
In the end, the genius of the Nameless Namek won out.
"Your wish has been granted."
Raditz gave a dark grin, and closed his eyes, expecting the sparky vitality of life to begin to wash over him any second.
He remained in that pose for a minute. No feeling arrived. He opened his eyes and looked around stupidly. The Demon King was glaring at him.
"You fool," he snarled. "Your halo is still present."
Raditz blinked. "What? I just made the wish!"
The Demon King was shaking with rage. "You incompetent bastard! You wished for the strongest Saiyans to be brought back to life! Evidently you're not among them."
Raditz felt something die inside of him.
He didn't respond.
"All these years. All this training."
His opposite number didn't seem to notice his internal trauma, and continued ranting.
"You wasted a goddamn wish! Now, a bunch of your former playmates are going to be running around, alive and well, and thanks to you neither of us has joined them yet. Our involvement comes to a close here. Get out of my sight."
He then turned back to the dragon, his mind still in upheaval at the boneheadedness of this man he had actually thought of as a partner. No wonder Frieza had decided to exterminate the entire race, it was merely a case of cleaning up the gene pool.
He got his breathing under control and then began to speak.
"Blight, I wish-…."
THWACK.
Daimao was hit on the side of his face with a ferocious drop kick. It was probably the strongest blow he had felt since Son Goku had torn right through him all those decades ago. It took him right off his feet and powered him through the air into a nearby mountain.
Raditz landed in a crouch, a sadistic grin rising on his face.
He looked up at the dragon and spoke.
"For the second wish, I want you to bring me back to life."
Blight glowed dark again.
"Your wish has been granted."
Raditz felt it almost immediately. His skin, which had a permanent pale look and cold and clammy feel since he had died, now returned to its usual tone and shed the pallor. He felt a warmth rising inside of him that he could not describe, a tingling that rose to his fingertips and almost made him tremble. It was a feeling he knew he had experienced only once before, at birth, and it was obviously too long gone to remember.
He flicked his eyes upward. The ever-present prison that was the halo above his forehead was gone too.
"I'm alive," he whispered, clenching his fist. Veins of power began to crackle around it.
Thirty years, gone in a flash. But this wasn't done yet.
"For my third wish, I want you to make me a SUPER SAIYAN!"
The towering black dragon considered this momentarily. He then glowed again once more.
"Your wish has been granted. Farewell."
Even as he glowed a dark black and then began to shrink back into the Dragon Balls, taking the upheaval of the elements with him, the effects of the Eternal Dragon's spell began to work their wonders on the former third class warrior's body.
A white hot sensation flooded his senses, much different from the previous, enjoyable warmth. He spread his legs and bent his knees, bringing his hands up in two tight fists. The power he felt himself radiating was burrowing a hole in the ground beneath him.
"THIS POWER IS MINE!"
His muscles began to bulge past their usual limits, straining against the black armor he'd been wearing for the last thirty years. His pupils began to dilate, and then flash in and out of visibility. As his neck twitched up and down, taking his head with it, his normal jet black hair began to flash into a different colour. At first, it was just translucent, but soon, it took on a goldenish hue, and instead of falling downward across his back as it usually did, it began to flare out behind him, as if a gust of wind was holding it there.
The power he felt was already amazing, but he kept pushing it further and further, letting out one animalistic roar after another. His fists were clenched so tight that blood began to seep out.
Raditz saw the past, present and future flash before his eyes. His father, Bardock, who had died when he was just a few years old. A preoccupied and vicious man who had little time to spend time with a wide-eyed, admiring son. Frieza, the murderer of his people, lounging languidly in his throne with some wine, declaring that Raditz was the weakest monkey he had ever seen. Vegeta, the arrogant prince, ordering Raditz to Earth without caring whether he lived or died as a consequence.
It was the final image that did it, though. He saw Kakarot, that traitorous murderer, his brother, wagging his right finger and shaking his head sadly as if he were reprimanding a child for a wrongdoing.
He let out a primal sound, and something snapped inside him. He bent his back further, jutting his neck out, and let out one final shriek as his aura exploded completely. It would have blinded anyone in the vicinity had they been there.
Finally, it began to die down.
When it cleared completely, Raditz was a sight to behold. Nearly every muscle in his body, from triceps to hamstrings, had expanded well beyond its normal limits and was looking as if he had indulged in copious amount of whey protein shakes. His hair had turned a vibrant golden. Normally his hair already grazed his knees, but now it would probably get trapped underneath his ankles if it wasn't flaring out behind him as was normal with such transformations. It was a vibrant golden that was extremely out of place with the usual dull and dark atmosphere of Hell.
The biggest change was in his eyes however. They had gone from his usual shade of grey to a deep aqua-blue. They seemed filled with life and energy like never before. A miniscule blue flame was dancing inside his pupils.
He glanced at the spot that Blight had been. He was gone now, leaving only the seven Balls in his wake.
Raditz let out a bark like laugh and raised his right hand, allowing black energy bolts to weave their way around his fingers. Who knew it could be that easy?
His attention was then drawn to the rubble of the mountain he had kicked his former partner into. Daimao was emerging from it, and boy, was he angry.
Raditz laughed again. This wasn't the ideal test of his new power, considering that in scouter power level terms he was probably in the range of the hundreds of millions and Daimao was probably beneath Frieza's first form, but it was better than nothing.
"YOU TRAITOR!" came a wild shriek. "I WILL TEAR YOU LIMB FROM LIMB!"
The villainous green warrior kicked off the rock he was standing on and was upon Raditz in a heartbeat. He unleashed a powerful right hook, then a left jab, and completed the combination with a spinning kick that landed squarely on the Super Saiyan's jaw.
Even as the end of Daimao's heel rested there, Raditz's smile didn't drop.
"Come on, old man, a little bit to the right, I have an itch there."
The Namekian let out another shriek. His mental faculties were completely gone, replaced only by an incessant and unquenchable thirst for the Saiyan's blood. He dropped back onto both feet and took about ten steps back. He raised the index and middle finger of his right hand to his forehead, and began to growl.
Raditz chuckled. He remembered this technique very well. It had enabled this fool's son to kill him after all, but the younger Namekian had at least been in the same order of magnitude as him. The attack could help one overcome an initial power gap of even 400%, but Daimao was an absolute mite compared to him. No attack would make him even remotely relevant.
"SPECIAL BEAM CANNON!"
The Namekian snapped his arm forward at the elbow, and a two-parted beam issued forth from the two digits. It consisted of a straight and yellow ray of energy, which was surrounded by a spiralling one from the base all the way to the bulb-like tip.
Raditz's arms were still folded. He merely raised his head up and caught the blow right on the base of his chin. As it detonated, it caused a smokescreen that temporarily blinded Daimao.
He swivelled this way and that, blinking through the billowing ash and smoke while looking for his target. As he took a step back, he felt himself bump into a towering form.
"If it was a few thousand times stronger… I might have felt it."
Daimao wheeled around, but as soon as he did, he felt a vice like grip curl itself around his throat.
"You think you could disrespect the Saiyan race and get away with it?" whispered Raditz coldly. He didn't expect an answer of course. His hand was squeezing tight enough that Daimao couldn't even move his head.
"There's a penalty involved, you green freak," he continued, looking into the thrashing man's eyes.
A dark smile flickered across his face.
"Infinite and inescapable suffering."
He pressed down just a little harder, and the pressure reached tipping point. Daimao's head had already swollen to the size of a bulbous watermelon. Thanks to the little added force, it literally exploded where it was, soaking Raditz's hand with blood and brain fluids.
He tossed the headless body to the side and threw his head back, laughing for five solid minutes.
No better way to welcome oneself back to the world of the living than killing a dead man, he mused, before swinging his neck from side to side to draw a couple of cracks.
Time to greet some old friends.
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King Yemma had put the line in the check-in station on hold. That was only done on the rarest of rare occasions, but the judge of the dead was fairly certain that an uprising in Hell was something worth pausing for. It was one thing if some moron like Frieza or Cell decided to mess about; he could just send Pikkon in to deal with them.
This was different. Several ungodly powerful souls had been wished back to life. Yemma was certain there was only one set of Dragon Balls in the Universe that was currently active, and he had immediately checked with Moori, the Guardian of Namek, to see if someone had utilized the Namekian Balls, to which the elderly man had replied that no such event had occurred. In fact, the Namekians had put out a planet wide ban on the use of the Balls after hearing of the ones on Earth overloading with negative energy.
That left just one solution: a new set of Balls had been created. Considering the wishes that had been made, it was fairly evident that the person in control of these Balls did not wish the Universe well at all. Despite all the variety of threats existence had faced under Yemma's watchful eye, the saving grace was that not a single villain had made a successful wish with the Dragon Balls.
Now that had changed of course. Yemma could not even begin to imagine the unthinkable havoc that could be wrecked by a denizen of Hell armed with the ability to alter reality any way he saw fit.
Something had to be done.
He had called on Baba, the fortune-telling witch, and sought her advice.
The old lady had consulted her crystal ball and determined reinforcements from Heaven were the only alternative. Piccolo had no chance of standing up to what was to come by himself.
So Yemma had called on to of Heaven's less noted warriors. They were out of the limelight, but ferociously strong and both were committed to keeping the order of things.
They were Android 16 and Dabura, the former King of Demons.
The two towering (by normal terms, both were mites compared to Yemma) men stood impassively at the base of Yemma's desk.
16 spoke cautiously. "Am I to understand that you require me to go to Hell and crush the Saiyan uprising, which consists of the names you mentioned?"
Yemma nodded. "But be careful. The two of you will need to join Piccolo to do this. The ones I told you about are absurdly powerful. As Saiyans, they receive massive power boosts from near death experiences. Actually being dead for decades is exponentially more of a benefit. Not to mention the two of you are already dead, and they are not, meaning that's a handicap right there."
Dabura cracked his knuckles. "Not to worry sir. 16 and I have been training for years on end, we'll put an end to this misguided behaviour."
Yemma nodded darkly. "You'll have backup if need be. I'm keeping Pikkon here as a trump card in case you fail, because I have a bad feeling this is going to get very ugly and I want the check-in station and the Planet of the Kais to have a fall back option."
He pressed a button on his desk, and a sinkhole opened in the floor in front of him.
"That portal will take the both of you straight to Hell, just a few clicks from Piccolo. Once you'll are finished, Piccolo will communicate that to me and I will bring you back."
The two giants walked towards it shoulder to shoulder, and as soon as each one had one foot in, they disappeared from view.
Yemma pressed his hands against his eyes and sighed. He stared back at the paper in front of him. It had the names of the Saiyans that had been revived.
A shiver went down his spine, which was a very uncommon thing. He was glad he wasn't 16 or Dabura right now.
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I know it's short, my apologies. Just felt it was a good place to end. Good news for my Nightrise readers: I think I'm almost at the point where I'll be ready to resume this story. In case I do, this will become a side project for a bit, because I want to finish Nightrise before I head to university.
Anyway, enjoy this for now, and please review!