The fool's power level kept climbing. For somebody who'd shown off a base power level of 1,200, this should've been impossible.

Wind screamed through the narrow streets and a downpour began as Kakarot's power level continued skyrocketing; 5,000, 9,000, 18,000, 40,000, 90,000. Kakarot's eyes had gone completely red as he grew larger and larger, transforming into his massive ape form. Buildings crushed like egg shells as Kakarot's hulking form grew into them and the asphalt underneath him fractured from his sheer weight.

"Vegeta, he's going berserk! We have to get out of the way!" Nappa was screaming at him, grabbing him by the collar as he flew both of them away, but he couldn't move a muscle.

Vegeta couldn't process what was happening in front of him as his scouter continued doing the only thing it could anymore, reading power levels that shouldn't exist.

The great ape's scream pierced through the noise of the storm as he shot out a yellow wave of energy from his mouth, saturating the smog the color of harvest gold as hundreds of buildings were annihilated in its wake. Anything resembling Kakarot was now far gone, consumed by the Oozaru.

All of Kakarot's tricks, his jokes, and any sense of technique were long gone. All that existed now was his raw power, pushed as far as it could go.

Vegeta was speechless as Nappa continued dragging them to safety, away from the rampage of the now out of control Kakarot.

One hundred and eighty thousand.

"Alright, I think we're safe now," Raditz said.

Vegeta could see that he was trembling. What a good performance.

"You think we're safe now?" Vegeta said as he broke from Nappa's grasp. "I think you're a damn traitor!"

"What?" The bastard had the nerve to be confused!

"Vegeta, what are you talking about?" Nappa asked. This time he at least had the wisdom to not physically get in his way.

"Why the hell are our power levels equal?!" Vegeta pointed in the direction of Kakarot, but all sight of him was lost through the rain, smoke, and smog. The oozaru's howls were the only thing to identify him by.

"Th - There's no way for me to know, Prince Vegeta!" Raditz was starting to fly backwards now. Did he think he could get away from this? "His scouter got destroyed every other mission, none of us could have tracked what he was up to."

"I should've never given you oversight!" Vegeta's hand was wrapped around Raditz's neck before he could even think of doing it. "You two were working together to destroy me, that's why we're on this planet. It's why our scouters are nearly useless right now. It's why Kakarot feels so comfortable wearing Frieza's armor, why he was told about the Ginyus but I wasn't. It's a coup!"

Raditz didn't try to pry the Prince's hand away, even as he wrung his neck tighter with each sentence, his arms laid at his sides as he spoke. "P…please Vegeta, you've got it wrong."

Vegeta only readjusted his grip as he put his second hand around his neck.

"Vegeta," Raditz choked out his words as his face began turning blue. "I can't fight you. I'd never fight you. Please."

"He's telling the truth." Vegeta found that Broly's hand was on his wrist as he spoke. His hand felt as if it was humming like an engine and pouring rain bounced off of his rising ki. His thick gold necklace shook and the stones in the strange jewelry that Raditz had given him glowed a faint green. For once, Broly even sounded determined, the wallflower was deciding to bloom.

"And what makes you say that?" Vegeta said as he kept his grip around Raditz's neck.

Vegeta knew that Nappa watched with his power level already increased to counter Broly's, ready for combat.

"If it wasn't, we'd already be fighting you. Or we would've gone another way when Kakarot transformed, not kept at your side. We're with you." Broly still hadn't taken his hand off of him, but it was shaking as his voice cracked. "Please. We need to stick together."

Stick together? They had already stabbed him in the back, but his grip on Raditz slackend, and Raditz hungrily gasped at the chance to get more air in his lungs.

Vegeta shot a glare at Broly and his underling's power level plummeted as his gems returned to their blue color, but his grip loosely stayed on him. If this went south, he'd be sure to make him regret not unhanding him instantly.

"Then explain why Kakarot's power level is so high. How in the world could a low class have the same power level as an elite?!" Vegeta said.

"When you rescued Kakarot and I on the Thaw mission," Raditz said after he got enough air to speak again. "There were techniques that the woman you killed tried to teach us. I couldn't learn them, I was never strong enough …. But Kakarot was. Maybe this was one of them. It could be the same reason he was able to find Nappa when our scouters couldn't track his power level."

"You couldn't learn them?" Vegeta spat. "He always had the weaker power level of you two. You should've easily been able to learn whatever he learned."

"Well I couldn't! I'm not like him!" Vegeta let go of him. He was far past being a threat and he didn't need to use his scanner to see it. "I'm not strong like you all are, I'm just low class, and that's all I'm ever going to be. All I can ever do is this …. For Lord Frieza!"

Raditz threw out three ki blasts so quick that he caught them all off guard.

The blast exploded the scouter off of Vegeta's face. Broly had gotten hit as well and Vegeta's warrior instincts were quick to react with his newfound freedom from Broly's grip.

Vegeta ignited his palm with a blade of ki, but just as went to impale the traitor, they blew up the scouter on his own face.

"Wait!" Raditz shouted as the blade of energy reached his Adam's apple. "If you're right, if this is some conspiracy by Frieza, I just bought us time."

"We already couldn't use communications," Vegeta said as he held his hand steady, "What would destroying our scouters do?"

"We had our frequency jammed," Raditz said, "It's not impossible that Frieza had a backchannel established for listening in on us. Especially if this planet is the trap you say it is, Prince Vegeta."

"Good." Vegeta, for the second time now, ceased his threat against Raditz's life. "Don't make me think I'm going to have to kill you for a third time today."

As they wiped away the scouter debris from their faces, Nappa said, "Ya know Raditz, you may not be strong, or able to fight for crap, or brave, or all that trustworthy —"

"You can feel free to get to the point now," Raditz said.

"You're kinda smart, reminds me of your father. I think he would appreciate it," Nappa said.

The memory was slow to creep into his head, but it latched on as Vegeta watched Raditz face change from fear and anger to gratitude at the compliment. He'd seen Bardock and his father together.

He couldn't remember what they were talking about or anything they'd said to each other, he couldn't have been more than three years old, but he remembered what they said to each other as Kakarot and Raditz's father left their throne room.

"Do you know what it takes to be King?" Vegeta's father asked as the door shut behind Bardock.

He took his thumb out of his mouth. "Be strongest!

"That's most of it," his father said as he playfully bounced his son on his knee, "but you must also be liked."

His memory of the event ended there, but Vegeta could feel the hand of fate guiding him back to this moment. He took fate's hand and the two went in tow as equals. He was the current prince and next king, he couldn't let such an obvious moment of divine providence pass him by. He would make sure it went exactly where it needed to be.

Vegeta looked Raditz dead in the eyes and said, "And I appreciate your intelligence as well."

"Y…You do?" Raditz said.

"Indeed, our new empire will require people of your intellect."

"New empire? What are you talking about?"

"The die has been cast. We all know it has. Kakarot, the Ginyu Force, Frieza, they're all obviously working together to kill all of us. If Kakarot had intended to keep you in on the plan, don't you think he would've told you about it?"

"I …" Raditz paused, and Vegeta watched as he chose his words over and over again in his head before saying,"I don't know if my brother wants to kill me."

"Well either he would've told you about this plan and made sure you didn't die, he worked with you and you're planning to kill me, or you're being caught off guard and he considers you about as important as everything else he destroys in his path," Vegeta said. "For both of our sakes, I'm choosing to believe the last scenario."

After accepting Raditz's silence as agreement, Vegeta continued. "Taking all of our enemies on my own will be nearly impossible. But together they can be crushed with ease. I can defeat Kakarot. We can defeat Frieza."

He could see the fear in all of them, it was detestable, but he knew it well. He had been afraid once too, but that feeling had started being consumed by righteous fury the moment he saw Kakarot in the hangar.

How could that bastard do this to them?

Vegeta said, "Either die on this planet or die fighting for our freedom, for our saiyan pride. Will you all join me?"

"I'll join you," Nappa said.

Raditz nodded with much more than a hint of hesitation. "I'll join you. Just please grant me one last chance to save my brother."

"Save him?" Vegeta said.

"If he really is working with Frieza, he must've been tricked. If there truly is to be a new saiyan empire, then doesn't that mean as many of us should be alive as possible?"

Vegeta couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was he trying to plead that Kakarot was too stupid to know that he had challenged him to a fight to the death? Kakarot was an idiot, but to argue that he didn't know how words worked was a bridge too far.

"You want me to save somebody who plans to kill me? Who works with the monster who destroyed our planet and killed our people?"

He had never felt more free in his life. He could finally say it, say the truth that he knew out loud. Frieza destroyed their planet. From years of constant surveillance through their scouters, he lived every waking moment with the idea in his head, but he could never say it out loud, never discuss it with anyone. But judging by his squadmates faces', they knew it to be true as well.

"He thinks he's only taking the leadership position from you." Raditz must've sensed how disgusting Vegeta even considered the concept as he continued. "Which is a crime that should be punishable by death, you have every right to want to kill him if he fights you, but … I think this is just something he's been hung up on since Thaw."

"I don't care about what he's hung up on," Vegeta said. "Even if you can convince him to give up on fighting me, do you know what the consequences are for outright forfeiting a Prekku?"

"Exile or Death." Nappa's voice was somber, but they all knew it to be the truth.

Exile was obviously out of the question. Where would they even exile him to? Frieza's army?

"Would you have me change my word as prince? As the future King? You'd have our empire founded on lies and cowardice." Vegeta could tell that Raditz was terrified, he'd seen him kill for less. Even making this request was probably the bravest thing he'd ever done.

"He'll still fight, and I know you'll win, I won't even ask for mercy … but … but there has to be another way," Raditz said.

"Like a metaphor?" Broly quietly chimed in.

"A metaphor?" Vegeta said dryly.

"Metaphorically kill Kakarot," Nappa rubbed his chin as he looked at the three young men he'd raised. "There is a precedent for it. Queen Till was famous for challenging rival monarch's to the death personally, and then just yanking people's nobility away from them as she made them into serfs or personal staff. They lived, but everything that they thought made them who they were was destroyed."

Raditz and Broly were both looking at him with the same pleading eyes, and even Nappa was joining in. They were serious about this, they actually wanted him to take his word back.

Vegeta found his biggest challenge to be not finding a way to appease them, but in holding his tongue. If he wasn't trying to win their hearts and minds at this moment he'd probably consider all of them traitors.

It would be the easy way out. He could do it, he could just kill all of them for even suggesting that he stoop so low. But he couldn't.

The prince took a long and annoyed breath through his nose and breathed out in a huff. They weren't traitors, they were just processing Kakarot's betrayal at their own speed.

It pained him to look weak, to give into his subordinates, but maybe this is what his father was talking about all those years ago. If he gave them something they wanted now, something Frieza would never do, he'd have them forever.

"We have a deal," Vegeta said. "When I beat Kakarot, I'll tell him that I'm ending his life as a Frieza soldier. He'll begin his life, and the life of all his descendants, as personal thralls to my family line."

Raditz kneeled to Vegeta. "Thank you for your noble mercy, my prince."

"If he throws it in my face, I'll kill him where he stands," Vegeta said. "And your family will take his place."

"I wouldn't have it any other way, my prince. You have my word on my saiyan pride that I'll join you and follow whatever choices you make."

"I'll join you as well," Broly said the moment Raditz finished.

Vegeta turned his attention to Broly and his eyes narrowed. "Are you pledging your allegiance to me, or merely following Raditz?"

He knew that the two of them were close, closer than he was with either of them. He was already ceding his ruthlessness and bloodlust for vengeance against Kakarot, but if they thought he was going to go easy on them they had another thing coming. If he was going to lead an empire, his subjects had to answer to him above all else.

"You kept me with you even while my father has been missing all these years, Prince Vegeta." He moved his thumbs through his fingers as he talked, one of the many fidgets he had picked up over the years. "I know that I'm not strong, that I'm not as good at killing as the rest of you. You could have killed me and probably conquered planets much quicker, but you didn't. That tells me all I need to follow you."

Broly kneeled as well, but only left Vegeta more confused than when he'd asked the question. Was he saying he was already some sort of merciful ruler? That was preposterous, he'd seen him kill millions. He cared about his own people, but did Broly truly think that meant he'd start to treat their future subjects how he would, like they were his equals?

Vegeta slowly nodded at the bizarre saiyan in front of him. "Then it's settled. Raditz, Broly, Nappa, welcome to the New Royal Guard."

"Alright!" Nappa cheered. "Hope you're ready to see what the Saiyan Empire was like back in my day! We'll have Prekku's every week, the conquests feasts have really been lacking under Frieza. Oh! Oh! Oh! And the music festivals, holy harvest, I bet you guys have never even seen a zanacello! They're a little bit hard to make but if you give me a few months I'm sure I can make one from memory, they have these huge str-"

"Nappa," Vegeta said, "we have to actually finish this mission before we can worry about the empire."

"Oh, right." Nappa's excited smile reached from ear to ear.

Vegeta thought to himself for a moment. They had no way of knowing if the Ginyu Force was coming, Kakarot would be rampaging out of control until both the moon and his artificial moon were destroyed or he was killed. There was seemingly no intelligent life on Throhbaq, but if everyone had fled, they would've seen ships evacuating as they were traveling to the planet

The buildings they had seen on their way in were abandoned, but freshly. Usually if a planet had been given a massive warning that Frieza's army was coming for them, the planets of cowards had a common script: The buildings would've collected dust, been looted, and the remaining forces on the planet would be in complete anarchy before falling to them in a matter of hours.

The planets full of fools and or those that had an ounce of self respect, they were completely different. Hunkering down, laying traps, assembling their forces. Dying with at least a shred of pride

They'd been to hundreds of planets, experience told him this was a planet that already had fighters waiting for them.

"Raditz, scan the planet for power levels," Vegeta said.

"Um, Prince Vegeta. My scanner was also destroyed."

"And?"

"I can't scan for power levels without my scanner."

"Oh shut the hell up." Raditz recoiled and Broly and Nappa gave him perplexed looks, but he didn't relent. "If a weakling like Kakarot could learn how to do it, that means all of us can do it. If you refuse to learn how to and you can't explain it to us, your time in the empire is going to be much shorter than both of us were expecting."

"Okay…" Raditz closed his eyes. "You have to try and feel out the energy of the things around you. Each being around you, the plants, the birds, the mice, the bugs, you need to parse out all of the energy and pick out the ones you're looking for, and then feel their power."

"Like when you smell dinner cooking?" Nappa said.

Raditz opened one eye to look at him.

"If somebody is making stew, you don't just go 'oh, that's soup!' You can smell the plants, the veggies, the meat. Sure it takes a bit to parse them out, but you can still sense that they're all there and some of them smell way stronger than others." For a concept he'd never heard of before in his life, Nappa gave an all knowing nod of sagely wisdom as he spoke.

"That is … shockingly relevant, Nappa," Raditz said.

"What can I say, don't take much book learning to be educated," Nappa said as he put his fists to his hips.

Vegeta had his arms crossed and was tapping his fingers on his elbows watching this scene play out. "Can you sense the enemy or not?"

Raditz closed his eyes again, paused for a moment, and said, "I can sense Kakarot's energy. It's growing off of him like sunlight on an ocean, incredibly easy to see, and plus he's my brother, I just know it's his when I see 's a ki signature not too far from him, it's pretty bright, but it's in his direct line of travel."

"Kakarot never received the training to control his ape form," Vegeta said. "If it's one of Frieza's men, Kakarot will probably kill him before he can be reasoned with. What's their power level?"

"I can't sense their power level, only that the power is there," Raditz said. "I was never able to master that part. The only thing I can tell is that Kakarot's aura is very bright, and the one he's running into is near the same level of brightness."

Another power level that was nearly equal to his? This was getting ridiculous.

"Well you damn well better master it soon. You're our eyes, we can't have you pointing us to things you can't even clearly see." Vegeta sighed. "Are there any other power levels you can see?"

Sweat collected on Raditz's brow as he focused. The only time Vegeta had seen the low class warrior that stressed was when he caught him reading engineering textbooks.

"Underground," Raditz said. "I can see one power level underground, but it's faint. Could be because of the distance or could be because they're actually weak. I'm not able to tell."

Vegeta scoffed. "It doesn't matter, with the four of us here, I doubt there's anything on this planet that could take only people I'd worry about are the Ginyus, and there's no way they would be able to make it underground by now since they would've left after us. We need to find out what the people underground are doing, squeeze whatever information we can out of them, have the Prekku with Kakarot, and then get the hell off of this scrap heap planet."

"You got it Vegeta!" Nappa said, "Let's get the bastards and get moving!"

Raditz nodded. "alright, Broly and I -"

"Will move together with Nappa and I," Vegeta said. "We move as one. There will be no separation during this mission unless I say so. Is that understood?"

His subordinates nodded and the group four of them followed Raditz as they flew through the sky, barely able to see in front of them. But they wouldn't need their sight, only trust in each other, and faith in their abilities.

Vegeta had always dreamed of having an empire as powerful as his ancestors.. This wasn't how he'd ever picture starting it in a million years, but the start didn't matter, it was only one piece of the picture, a singular tile of the grand mosaic that would be his reign. The destruction of Frieza and his entire family, forging a new empire out of the ones he'd destroy, and establishing a dynasty that would last as long as the galaxy. Just a few of the hundreds of tiles that would form a picture of his legacy. What fate knew he was born to do.