Hey everyone. My holiday actually went on for longer than planned, so I'm posting this from abroad. As promised, I'll decide on a posting schedule when I get back, which will be in a couple of days. Until then, there'll be this chapter, and at least one, possibly two, more.
Chapter 6: Arrival
Training with Raditz was intense beyond belief. All his life, Goku had pushed himself, and been pushed by others, to overcome his limitations and climb to new levels of strength. But this was entirely new. Raditz, unlike most of Goku's allies, was less of a martial artist and more of a soldier. His sink-or-swim attitude meant that if a session left Goku incapacitated, Raditz would carry on training without him, telling him to come back when he'd reattached all his bones.
A lot of the brutality came from the fact that Raditz knew, and took advantage of, the saiyan ability to come back stronger after injury. This trait was used heavily—they'd take a bag of senzu beans, spar until they were half-dead, then eat a bean to heal themselves and start over.
After a couple of weeks, Goku started bringing Gohan along to watch—he'd been asking where his daddy and uncle were all day, and Chi-Chi agreed to let him go and see, as long as he took his ever-present study books with him.
Goku collapsed next to his son after a hard day's training. "How you doing, kid?" he asked, ruffling the boy's hair. He'd noticed Gohan staring wide-eyed at the two saiyans as they fought at incredible speed, their blows echoing throughout the valley.
"Daddy…will I be big an' strong like you when I grow up?" Gohan asked.
"If you work hard and practice often, sure," Goku replied, smiling a little, "but remember, your mom doesn't want you to be a fighter." He shrugged. "She doesn't want you getting hurt—and I can't blame her, it is dangerous."
"It's not fair!" Gohan pouted. "Why can't I be smart and strong at the same time?" He looked up questioningly. "Then you an' mommy'll both be happy, right?"
Goku laughed. "Well, that's harder than you might think. Anyway, I should get back to it. Raditz is looking impatient." He jumped up, and headed over to his brother. "Great kid," he said. "He wants to fight too, but his mom won't let him."
"A waste," Raditz observed, watching Gohan. "His saiyan heritage could make a fine warrior of him—and we need every advantage we can get."
"Out of the question." Goku folded his arms, standing firm. "I'm sure he could grow up to be a great fighter, but he's a four-year-old child. There's no way he's getting into a life-or-death battle."
"At least train him a little." Raditz shrugged. "Who knows what battles he might have to face as an adult, and besides, when the other saiyans arrive, the whole world will be at stake. If we lose, he definitely dies. You don't want that for your son, I assume?" He raised an eyebrow.
Goku sighed. "…Fine. I'll give him some training. But he's not fighting unless he absolutely has to, you understand?" Raditz nodded. "Good," Goku continued. "And we have to be sure not to let Chi-Chi know. He's such a smart kid he always finishes his homework long before we get home, so…each day, we'll start training him once he's done with it. Then everything will seem normal to Chi-Chi."
"You worry about that." Raditz picked up a stone from the ground. "I need to test something." He hurled it at Gohan with a flick of his wrist.
"Raditz, what are you—" Goku made to intercept it, but Raditz held him back.
"Watch," his brother told him.
The stone flew in a slight arc straight at Gohan's head. At the last second, he noticed it, and his eyes narrowed. There was a flash of light, and the stone disintegrated.
"I knew it!" Raditz grinned. "The child has great power. All we have to do is teach him how to use it." Goku nodded—Gohan's power was almost as high as Raditz's when he'd first arrived on Earth. Maybe this was going to be easier than he'd thought.
About six months into their training, Bulma drove over to Kame House, having finished Raditz's new armour—the old armor, she said, had been too broken to fix entirely, so she'd just incorporated the pieces and the protective technology into this one. He took it with muttered, somewhat forced thanks. It consisted of black leggings and vest, an armoured top, and his old boots and gauntlets. Bulma had dispensed with the shoulder and leg plates, declaring them too unwieldy—plus, just about every battle simulation she ran ended with them broken. Now she'd made one suit, she could mass-produce them, so Raditz wore them for training, and once he'd busted up one suit just picked up another. Needless to say, Bulma constantly berated him for his 'carelessness', but she was basically a good person and never refused to make any more. For his own part, Raditz knew if he snapped the Earth woman in two for her constant whining, he wouldn't get any new armour, so he managed to restrain his anger for the time being.
As time went on, Goku's flight improved to the point where he let Gohan use the Nimbus, and Raditz's ki sense developed until it was almost as good as any human fighter's. Gohan, training in one of Goku's old turtle school uniforms—from when he'd been a child himself—had come on in leaps and bounds, enjoying being able to join in his father's favourite pastime. He was even starting to rub off on Raditz, who now wouldn't snap at him every time he said anything—only, say, half the time. The child's latent power had surprised both the adults, even for a saiyan child. It seemed a saiyan-human crossbreed was a particularly powerful hybrid. They had been about to remove the boy's tail to prevent him from transforming, but received a telepathic message from Kami, who wearily informed them that Piccolo had dealt with the situation as soon as Kami had told him of the saiyan transformation. They were somewhat taken aback next nightfall to discover that their planet no longer had a moon. Again.
Piccolo, meanwhile, had agreed to hold off on his efforts to conquer the world until the invading saiyans were defeated. In his conversations with Kami, he hinted at a new technique he was developing, though he was a little vague on the details. The preparation for the saiyans' arrival continued all around the world—Krillin and Yamcha, having completed Kami's training, separated, Yamcha heading out into the wild, and Krillin returning to Kame House, both to continue their training. At Capsule Corp, Bulma was replicating Raditz's scouter, so that the humans unable to sense energy would be able to follow the battle in some way.
Finally, the year was almost up. The seven Dragon Balls were gathered at Kame House, and Shenron summoned forth—no matter how many times they saw the sky darken, and the burst of light shine into the heavens, it never quite got old. "Speak your wish," the dragon rumbled.
"So this is the dragon…" Raditz whispered, in awe. "To think I'd written this planet off as a backwater mudball when I arrived…but it just keeps on surprising me." He stood with Roshi, Krillin and the shy Launch, all gazing up at the hovering dragon.
"Hey, uh, I don't want to sound rude, but you're not gonna try and intercept the wish, are you?" Krillin asked.
"What?" Raditz realised what he was talking about. "Oh, you mean to wish for immortality like Vegeta wants to?" He shook his head. "I thought about it for a while. Nothing lasts forever. If you were immortal, eventually everyone else would die." He frowned. "You'd be alone, in an empty universe, forever. Count me out of that one. Besides," he gave a little smile at the thought, "I have no particular desire to fight Kakarot over it. He's grown in skill and power far faster than I'd have imagined."
With no further discussion, Roshi stepped forwards.
"Mighty Shenron—"
"Hold on," Krillin put a hand on the old master's shoulder. "Why don't we use the wish to destroy the saiyans, and bring Tien back next year?"
"That wish is impossible," Shenron boomed. "The wishes I grant cannot exceed the power of my creator, Kami. The saiyans are too powerful for me to destroy."
"All right then." Roshi nodded. "Good idea, Krillin—shame it didn't work. Shenron! Please restore Tien Shinhan to life!"
There was a pause as Shenron's eyes glowed bright red. "Your wish has been granted." In a brilliant flash of yellow light, Shenron was gone, and the Dragon Balls soared into the air, scattering across the world.
"Of course, if he's still got his body in the afterlife, he's got to physically travel back here…" Roshi shrugged. "He might not actually get here for a while."
"We're putting a lot of faith into that human," Raditz said. "Whatever training he's gone through in the afterlife, it had better have paid off."
"Don't worry." Launch smiled at Raditz. "I'm sure Tien will come through for us."
"Faith is a wonderful thing," Raditz muttered, heading back inside. "It must be nice not to know how bad the odds are."
The next morning, at 11:43 a.m., two saiyan attack pods collided with the Earth. Raditz looked up from his meal, his eyes widening. "They're here," he said to the others. "They'll head for the highest power level on this planet, and unless I'm mistaken, that would be me. Launch! Get the old man out of here. This island is about to become a battleground." He pulled on his armour, stretching his muscles.
"So she gets a name, but I'm 'the old man'?" Roshi grumbled.
"Get moving, old-timer!" The blonde Launch shoved him out the door. She glanced back at Raditz. "You better win!" She followed Roshi outside, and they sped away in their hovercar.
Raditz and Krillin stepped outside, waiting for the saiyans.
"Better bring your A-game today, baldy—eh?" He paused. "Your ki sense may be better than mine. Did you feel that?"
Krillin nodded. "Y-yeah." He was trembling. "They just wiped out thousands of people in an instant—a city, I guess—and I don't think it took them any effort! Hold on…you were right! They're heading this way!" Something caught his attention. "Hey, what's—" Goku appeared from behind them, landing next to Raditz. He hadn't bothered with his weighted training clothes-this wasn't the time to play around.
"You ready for this?" he asked, warming up. He noticed Raditz was wearing his arm and leg bands today. "Hey, Raditz, those red bands—you haven't worn them since you fought Piccolo."
Raditz nodded. "It is a saiyan tradition. When a comrade dies in battle alongside you, someone very close to you, you soak a white cloth with their blood and wear it into battle in remembrance."
"Do you mind me asking…who were they?"
"This one," Raditz pointed to his leg band, "is in memory of a brave ally of mine. She died on the last mission I was on before Planet Vegeta was destroyed, and had that not happened then there would have been five saiyans left in the galaxy today." And, he thought, it would have meant not all the remaining saiyans were male-their race might not have been doomed to extinction. Something which didn't seem to have stopped Kakarot...
"I'm sorry."
"So am I. And this one on my arm…" He paused. "It is in memory of our father—Bardock, a great warrior. He died with our planet, but his blood runs in my veins, so I coloured this with my own to honour him."
"Oh." Goku looked thoughtful—he'd never really thought much about his saiyan father. "Let's hope you don't have to add any more today." He realised he didn't know much about the saiyan race in general—he'd have to ask Raditz after the battle.
"No more time for talk!" Raditz pointed at two rapidly-growing specks in the sky. "Here they come!"
Next chapter, the battle with the saiyans begins! Hope you enjoyed this chapter-there were a lot of scenes to fit in. I've got a comment on how the chapters are a little short, so chapter 7 will probably be the longest so far, and possibly future chapters can hold to that standard. And in case anyone's wondering how strong the characters have become after training, the whole power levels deal will be dealt with in the next chapter.
Thanks for all the positive reviews, and over 1,000 unique visitors-and speaking of reviews:
Q: Nice ide for a story. I just have a question, why are the two main fliters for characters are Piccolo and Raditz? Does it mean they will focus on both of them MAJORLY or what
A: Well, the story will focus quite a bit on Raditz, and Piccolo will be in it, but the reason that the second filter is Piccolo is that those are the two characters who the story focuses on in the first couple of chapters. For another example, Bringer of Death (by far my favourite DBZ story on this site) originally had, I believe, Vegeta and Frieza as its filters-it's now changed to just Vegeta, and I'll probably remove Piccolo at some point. But not yet-he's still kind of important in the near future.
Q: So far, you seem to stick to the way that DB has often used to redeem villians, but it would be cool to see a change in that formula (like Raditz siding with the Saiyans again at some point, Piccolo staying more evil...) Id also appreciate to see more team-based fights like Surviving Z-Fighters vs. Vegeta early on in DBZ and you seem to go that route, so please continue it!
Questions:
How many of the Fillers will you consider canon? What about Cooler for example?
Do you believe that the hmans Z-Fighters could achieve power levels above 1 milliond (without Kaiou-Ken)? And will they do that in your Fic?
A: I can't say which of your questions/requests will be fulfilled/answered, or when, because spoilers and all that, but if you'd wanted at least some 'yes' answers, you should be happy with the upcoming story (speaking of which, I'm really looking forward writing to the next 'saga' after the Saiyan invasion...)
Q: I would have to say that it doesn't make sense that Goku wouldn't have a reason to train with the others. He still has more to Learn, Kami even said Popo handled most of Goku's training to fight Piccolo. And when they trained for the Saiyans they graduated stronger then Goku... so they have much to learn by training there.
A: Er, I wrote a fairly lengthy response to this, but accidentally deleted it and then forgot and went and wrote some other stuff so I couldn't Ctrl+Z to recover it, so I'll answer this one in chapter 7's Q&A, okay?
Q: Wow great story, just a question, how is everyone going to find out about gohan's supperior power level if raditz doesn't want to use his scouter? apparently sensing it failed for the first 4 years of his life.
A: Well, I hope this chapter answered that question. Also, I think it was filler, but a flashback in the wait for the Cell Games showed that Goku already had a hint Gohan was powerful in the DB-DBZ gap, plus depending on whether you count the Dead Zone movie, that had him already knowing. Plus, whereas in the anime episode 1 or 2 (I forget which) Goku says he doesn't know if Gohan is powerful, but in the manga he says 'I know he's got it in him' or words to that effect. A slight change, but it gives a different impression.
Also, in this section at the end of each chapter, I was planning, every now and then, to post characters' themes (as some would be different to DBZ due to their character development differing somewhat, and certain characters, like Raditz, would have theme music that didn't in DBZ).
If you don't like that idea, tell me in the reviews or send me a private message or something, and if you like the idea I'll put a bunch of characters' themes at the end of the next chapter, but anyway, the theme for Break Through the Limit's saiyan saga is 'Dragon Soul', the DBZ Kai opening.