Flying away from his embarrassment of a brother, Raditz cursed his complete and total lack of luck. Not only was his brother missing his tail, but also brain damaged to the point of uselessness. And while the sobbing brat in his arms looked Saiyan, it had to be a half breed; a half breed brat that had clearly never trained a day in its pathetic life. It was going to be a nightmare so get both of his family members up to speed before he was expected back in time for the purge.
A terrible thought suddenly struck Raditz, Kakarot had probably done absolutely no maintenance on his space pod since childhood if he had forgotten about it. Raditz came to a halt at midflight and began adjusting his scouter with his free hand, hoping to figure out the location of the other pod.
"Please let me go!" Cried the brat, "I promise to be good!"
Raditz glanced down at this nephew, how annoying. Well, no time like to present to begin training, "You want me to let you go? Alright then!"
Flinging out his arm away from his body, Raditz released the small child. Gohan dropped straight down about half a foot before his survival instincts kicked in and he managed to grab onto his uncle's lower leg before falling the rest of the way to his death. Gohan was suddenly very aware how high up they were. He promptly wrapped both his legs and his tail about his uncle's leg as best he could.
"Please pick me up!" Cried Gohan, "I'm sorry!"
Raditz looked down and grinned, "Aw and here I thought you wanted to be let go. You really need to make up your mind."
"I want my Daddy!"
"Not exactly motivating me to help you out there brat."
"Please! Help me!"
Raditz ignored the kid, paying attention to his scouter as it located Kakarot's old pod and set a course for it. Raditz took off flying, going much slower now as Gohan would have immediately been thrown at his regular velocity. Even going far slower than normal, Gohan began slipping down his leg, weak limbs barely able to hold on while hovering were unable to cling on while moving. For funnies, Raditz did a barrel roll midflight, completely dislodging Gohan from his body. Gohan screamed as he hurled directly towards a large mountain that they had been passing. Raditz chuckled, as he watched the child hurl towards certain doom, he'd go over and catch the kid before anything actually happened but a bit of near-death experience would probably really help with the spoiled attitude.
Instead, Raditz's scouter promptly went crazy as it read the child's suddenly increasing power level. When Raditz had first scanned the power levels of everyone on the beach, the boy had registered at a 1, a humiliating power level for even an infant. Raditz had intentionally chosen to give the child the benefit of the doubt as it seems his brother had failed not only as a Saiyan but as a father as well, no doubt due to the head injury. Furthermore, the child was a half breed and while Raditz couldn't truly fault his brother for his breeding given that there were no female Saiyans and that his brother seemed to genuinely think that he himself had been human, Raditz understood that that meant that the child would always be weaker than a true Saiyan. However, as the child got closer to the mountain, Raditz could only watch in shock as Gohan's power level jumped suddenly to 710 then to 1307! The boy's glowed briefly and with a scream the boy unleashes a burst of energy that completely obliterated the mountain.
Raditz landed on the ground next to the boy and stared blankly at him. Gohan looked up in confusion. Raditz tapped his scouter, the boy was registering as a 1 again.
"What was that?" Nappa's gruff voice came over the scouter.
"…I wish I knew. The kid's power level jumped from 1 to 710 then to 1307 after I threw him. Then he obliterated a mountain. But now it's back down to 1." Raditz stared at the child, if nothing else, Gohan seemed just as confused as Raditz. The kid looked between the utter destruction, his hands, and his uncle seemingly looking for answers. Well, at least he wasn't crying. Yet.
"Well, it looked to me like the halfling's power level changes with emotions." Snapped Prince Vegeta over the commlink, "Of course, it seems like they come out in bursts which is not particularly useful."
"But if trained he could be of some value!" Pointed out Nappa, "Put him in your pod and send him our next coordinates. I bet some good old fashion survival bootcamp will whip him into shape. With that potential, I'll get him trained up to proper Saiyan levels in no time!"
Raditz could hear the excitement in Nappa's voice. Prior to becoming a general, Nappa had a well-deserved reputation for being a sadistic drill sergeant who, in all fairness to his methods, did get results. Of course, growing up with only him and Vegeta had been hell-ish as Nappa wouldn't dare treat the royal prince to all his typical savagery thereby guaranteeing that Raditz had taken the brunt of his punishments. Nappa was probably so excited for a new 'recruit', especially a child he could train from almost the start into a perfect warrior. Raditz hoped Vegeta would allow it, Nappa needed something to keep him busy and, more importantly, far away from Raditz.
"Fine, just don't get in my way." Vegeta grumbled, "Raditz you have six months to turn your brain damaged, tailless brother into a proper Saiyan warrior. If he doesn't reach at least a low-class Saiyan levels, I will kill him myself. Understood?"
"Yes Sir!" Raditz was surprised by how mellow Vegeta was being, giving both him and Nappa a chance to train the other two. The last mission must have gone very well.
"Good. Do not fail me." With that, Vegeta cut the feed.
Quickly Raditz turned to grab Gohan who was still looking at the destruction with confusion, "Change of plans, brat. You're going on ahead."
"Wait, what!? I don't want to! I'm scared, I want my Daddy!" Turning away, Gohan attempted to flee and promptly tripped over his own feet. Hitting the ground, he started to whimper.
"Nope, none of that." Raditz reached down, grabbing the boy by the back of his overly decorated jacket.
As the child was his nephew, Raditz decided it would probably be wise to give the child some advice; lifting the small boy to face level, Raditz made sure to look directly into the child's eyes to show how serious he was. The Brat, for his part, at least seemed intelligent enough to know that he should pay attention to whatever happened next and stared nervously back at his uncle.
"Now listen carefully, I'm saying this for your own good. I'm going to send you to a couple of our people to get you trained up. Now, they are a lot less forgiving than me so don't you start your spoiled little antics with them, or you will be punished. If you do well, you might get to see your father again but if not, I doubt you'll survive very long. Got it?"
The kid started tearing up. Raditz promptly used his free hand to smack the child across the face.
"See that was exactly the type of behavior you will not be doing in front of General Nappa or Prince Vegeta. Do not show weakness, even a baby knows that."
"I hate you! I want my Daddy! Let me go!" screamed the child, flailing his limbs about in a desperate attempt to get away. Raditz smacked him again.
"Also, you best learn to speak respectfully. Assume anyone you're not actively killing should be addresses as 'Sir'. Think you can manage that?"
The child let out an angry growl and Raditz's scouter beeped once again, indicating the rising power level. Instead of allowing the child reach his peak, Raditz simply twisted him around and grabbed the young boy's tail. While he doubted the child would be able to create a second blast in such a short amount of time, Raditz didn't want to take any risks.
Gohan was having the longest day of his tiny, sheltered life. The morning had been great but his afternoon had started with getting lost in the wood, chased by a puma, falling off a waterfall, meeting a whole bunch of strangers, getting kidnapped a stranger, having to use all his strength to cling to aforementioned stranger to avoid falling, getting thrown into a mountain, tapping into all the ki in his tiny body to avoid death due to mountain throwing, and then getting smacked repeatedly in the face. As such, as soon as Raditz grabbed his tail and Gohan felt all the strength leave his body, he promptly lost consciousness, his tiny body having not only reached its limit but far exceeded it.
Noticing that his nephew had passed out, Raditz tucked him into his chest and took off in the direction of his pod and, no longer needing to adjust his speed for the sake of his passenger, he got there within a few minutes. Opening the pod, Raditz pulled out everything unattached. He hadn't had a chance to see Kakarot's old pod and who knew what shape it would be in so it was probably safe to just assume he'd need all the parts he could spare.
Quickly, Raditz ran a diagnostic on the pod and, after confirming everything was in functioning order, strapped his nephew in. Annoyingly, he no longer had the fledgling Saiyan training program installed, having far outgrown such needs himself and having no reason to believe he would have needed it anytime in the future. Raditz adjusted the pods life support to suit the younger Saiyan's needs, then typed in the coordinates. Vegeta and Nappa should beat the child there by about two days so hopefully they'd give the kid a hand once he landed. With everything set up, Raditz closed the pod and watched as it took off. He was almost looking forward to seeing the child next, with some serious training from Nappa, Raditz had no doubt he'd develop into a true Saiyan. With that in mind Raditz collected all his things and headed back in the direction of Kakarot's pod, he had a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it.
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Back at Kame House, Goku was finally able to catch his breath and, wincing in pain, managed to sit up right, "I need to go rescue my son!"
"No Goku!" Krillin grabbed the front of his friend's Gi, desperately attempting to keep him seated, "Do you think you're in any condition to fight!? You'll be killed! We need a plan!"
"His tail. When I had a tail, if someone squeezed it, I lost all strength. That's his weakness." Goku stood up, despite Krillin's best attempts, "And he won't be expecting an attack right away. He thinks he beat me, so I'll be able to catch him off guard. Nimbus!"
"But he did beat you," Snapped Bulma, "And how exactly are you planning on getting ahold of his tail? He's a bit faster than you."
"We'll help you." Decided Master Roshi, "I don't know the whereabouts of Tien or Yamcha but with the three of us we might have a chance."
"…yeah…" Krillin agreed, with significantly less confidence. "If we all die, Bulma can use the dragon balls to wish us back, right?"
"I'll try but I'm not sure that'll work. Remember how Gohan's ball on his hat faded away?" Bulma pondered it for a second, "I can run home and grab the dragon radar to see if it finds anything but do you think Piccolo might have been killed?"
"Someone needs to go to The Lookout," Decided Master Roshi, "And find out if Kami is still alive."
"I can try," Bulma offered, "I know where Korin Tower is, and I should be able to fly my capsule plane up there."
"But it's impossible to reach the Lookout using any kind of vehicle. Kami sends back anything he doesn't approve of." Pointed out Krillin.
"Well, then we'd know he was alive." Bulma glared at him, "Do you have any better ideas?"
"No…" Krillin sighed, "I guess you're… Goku stop!"
As the three adults had been trying to come up with plans and more recently figure out the existence of the dragon balls, Goku had jumped onto flying Nimbus and taken off, headed towards the highest power level he could sense.