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Chapter 5
Seeping Doubt
Kakarot and Raditz fly through the air passing by pitch black forests on their way to a set of coordinates given to them by Vegeta. They are dead silent, Kakarot is in no mood for any kind of conversation, being greatly displeased with his brother using him as a human shield a short while ago. Raditz was dealing with the guilt over disappointing his brother. He disliked Kakarot's way of combat, he thought it was too dangerous and too reckless. Running headlong into danger seemed foolish to him. Despite that fact, Kakarot had long since surpassed him.
Raditz questioned why his power level had stagnated while his brother who once only a power level of had five had now begun to catch up to Nappa. Raditz was starting to question if his way of fighting was indeed flawed, not morally speaking but in a pragmatic sense. Kakarot was indeed reckless, his anger caused him to disobey Vegeta often which led to a swift punishment. This wasn't the only time he had been beaten by Vegeta for displeasing him, but each time Kakarot was undeterred. Raditz thought Kakarot was just drunk off of the power of the Saiyan Zenkai Boost. The Saiyans' natural ability to permanently raise their base power level after recovering from serious injuries, the closer to death the greater the boost, to a point of course.
This is something Kakarot greatly benefited from in the past when he was weak and would regularly receive life threatening injuries. It's thanks to the Freeza Empire's advanced medical machines, called a "Bio Recovery Chamber" by the scientists responsible for making them, that Kakarot was able to recover fast and get back into more life-threatening battles. Before Raditz knew it Kakarot had surpassed him. Next thing he knows Nappa and Vegeta began to look at him as the black sheep of the squad rather than his runt of a brother.
It was aggravating but Raditz figured there was nothing he could do. Like he experienced earlier, he can't help but do whatever is necessary when he's in serious trouble. Raditz ended this line of thought with an internal question, "Am I going to stay weak?" Suddenly both Saiyan's Scouters go off pointing toward a strong power level in front of them. They stop and are greeted by Commander Jade, the PDF Commander who was in charge of the force that attacked them earlier, though Kakarot and Raditz didn't know this. Jade examined them and repeated a few characteristics to himself, "No fur, black hair and a primitive monkey tail." He then greeted them by saying, "You two must be the invaders I was warned about. If I had to make a guess, you two were the ones who destroyed New Toru City."
Kakarot cocked an eyebrow in confusion, "New Toru? Sorry, don't know what a "Toru" is but I'm guessing it's that place we blew up an hour ago." Jade cursed under his breath saying to himself, "Bastards, they don't even know the name of the race they are butchering." He then took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for the answer to his next question, "You two are coming in the direction of smoke. Tell me, invaders, are you responsible for that? Did you fight an army before coming here?" Raditz didn't want to talk right now, feeling like he might accidentally anger Kakarot again. He was sure Kakarot would want to answer anyway given the fact he's directly responsible for that army's destruction.
Kakarot was willing to give out the answer, but he didn't know exactly why this "Jade" wanted to know. This is when he realized why he was asking. Kakarot took a serious expression and said, "Were you the one who sent them to attack us?" Jade didn't answer immediately, first examining Kakarot's expression before answering him, "I am Commander Jade, I am in charge of the men you murdered." Kakarot gritted his teeth and said, "So you really are the bastard who sent those cowards after us." Kakarot pointed an accusatory finger at Jade who gritted his teeth as well, repeating a choice word from Kakarot's sentence, "Cowards?"
He clenched his fists and raised his arms halfway saying through hate filled words, "How dare you call my men cowards! I trained each and every one of them myself. You and your allies land in our cities, slaughter our people." Jade spit to demonstrate his disgust for the aliens in front of him, "Yet you call us cowards for daring to stand up to you! You're nothing but cowardly apes!" Kakarot bit back, being equally angry, "I told your people what I was here to do." Kakarot pointed at himself with his right thumb and then said, "I gave you lot a fighting chance, I didn't have to, but I did!"
Kakarot then pointed at Jade with his right index finger and continued his rant, "I won't stand being called a coward when I gave your men the chance to defend themselves." Kakarot then balled up his right fist and shook it in front of him saying angrily, "My pride as a Saiyan won't take that insult lyin' down, prepare yourself!" Jade unleashed his full power while yelling, "You and your "pride" can burn in hell!" Both of their Ki rose to their maximum, Raditz read his power level, "2…2,500?" Raditz thought to himself, "Even this bastard has a power level higher than mine." Raditz began to take a step backwards when Kakarot suddenly said without looking at Raditz, "I'm taking this one, you stay out of it." Raditz flinched at the statement, he thought to himself, "Damn it, not again."
Raditz realized he was already about to retreat even without meaning to. Raditz then reluctantly retreated to the ground below leaving Kakarot to deal with Commander Jade. Kakarot and Jade charged towards each other and when they met in the middle both warriors hit each other at the same time creating a small shockwave before disappearing and reappearing high in the sky. Each blow created more shockwaves clearing the sky of clouds. Kakarot and Jade then re-appeared on the ground a few feet from Raditz. Kakarot threw a flurry of punches which Jade countered with fists of his own matching each other blow for blow.
In the middle of this exchange Kakarot said out loud, "You're the first to keep up with me on this planet!" Jade responded with, "I'm a warrior I won't go down so easily!" Kakarot then said, "A warrior huh…" Kakarot was about to throw a right hook. Jade suddenly yelled out, "You're slowing down!" Jade then threw his own right hook faster than Kakarot's, aiming for his right shoulder, wanting to disable the use of his right arm. However, Kakarot suddenly sidestepped to his left revealing that right hook was a feint.
Kakarot suddenly hit Jade with three jabs and a sweeping left kick which hit his legs knocking him down. Kakarot said while in the middle of this counterattack, "I'm not slowing down." Jade couldn't recover before Kakarot grabbed his right leg and started swinging him in circles. Kakarot then let his leg go, throwing him clear across a field. Jade struggled to slow his acceleration; this is when Kakarot suddenly appeared behind him only to do nothing. Kakarot instead said, "I've just decided to kick it up a notch!" Jade threw an elbow behind him only for Kakarot to disappear and reappear behind him again.
Kakarot delivered a knee to his back and two more jabs after which he said with a raised voice, "What's wrong?" Kakarot disappeared and reappeared in front of him hitting him with a point-blank Ki Wave launching him high into the sky. Kakarot dashed towards him and when Jade with crumbling armor threw a punch meant to intercept him Kakarot vault over him hitting him with a strong punch to his back which sent him flying forward. As he was sent flying Kakarot yelled while disappearing and reappearing behind Jade again, "Can't you keep up?" He had a mocking tone. Kakarot sent him flying again but with a swinging kick.
Kakarot continued this for two more blows before he grabbed him by his left arm and pulled him all the way to the ground before slamming him into the dirt below.
Kakarot then picked him up by his left arm, leaving the rest of him dangling, he said, "You picked a bad time to challenge me." He then tilted his head to the left and said, "I was already pissed off." Kakarot then leaned his head forward and said, "Then you had to go and call me a coward." Kakarot pulled his head back and shifted his gaze to his upper right dismissing Jade as a threat.
He said, "And after getting yelled at by Vegeta too." Suddenly Jade threw a surprise punch at Kakarot's head only for Kakarot to catch it with his free hand. Kakarot looked at the commander and said, "I may be a killer but at least I still have my pride. Can you say the same "warrior?" Kakarot then dropped his, now broken, left arm and held him by his right. Kakarot waited for his response, "If pride is so important to you… why are you killing innocent people? You don't seem like a sadist; they have a cold look in their eyes. I see it on the battlefield often, but I don't see it in you."
Kakarot paused in order to give his question some thought before saying, "Let's just say I don't have much of a choice, it's part of the job. I've made peace with that fact a long time ago, whether I go to hell or not, I'll be damn sure to go there after having one hell of a final battle." Jade didn't have anything to say to that and besides that his left arm was finished. He couldn't keep up with the Saiyan anymore and honestly, he would rather die than witness the end of his people. Jade closed his eyes and Kakarot flinched for a moment, he knew what it meant but it still shocked him. This was Jade accepting his fate, the fight was over.
Kakarot after a moment of hesitation tossed Jade into the air and fired a Ki wave at him, his body soon dropping onto the ground seemingly lifeless. Kakarot looked at the body with a blank expression unsure of what he should be feeling. Kakarot felt strange, for whatever reason he pitied the fallen Commander, he felt ashamed for killing him though he didn't quite know why. He hadn't felt this way since his first mission when he had to deal with the fact that the Saiyan race are mere pirates under Freeza's employ. Finding out their job was to kill people regardless of if they could put up a good fight or not. Raditz appeared behind him believing if he didn't intervene then Kakarot might not take his eyes off that corpse.
Before he could say anything Kakarot just said, "Let's head out." Kakarot began to leave with Raditz following when Kakarot suddenly stopped and said, "Raditz…is this…?" Kakarot stopped himself from finishing his question. Raditz asked, "Is this what?" Kakarot just said, "Never mind, it's not important." Raditz let it go but he felt less anxious seeing Kakarot's confused state. Kakarot and Raditz arrived at the military base, the vehicle depot known as Obsidian Base. They looked off from afar and saw that it had a strong Ki Barrer around it, made by several Shield-men.
Punching through would be tough and Raditz fully expected that was going to be their plan, after all he promised his brother that they would do this his way. Kakarot however surprised him, he got on one knee and began to check the ground. Kakarot asked, "How many meters are we from the base?" Raditz was caught off guard by the odd question. He took a quick look at the base and said, "We're fifty meters from it, wait what's our plan?" Kakarot just said, "We're gonna dig under the base and break in from below." Raditz couldn't believe his ears, Kakarot wasn't asking them to go in the front door. He also developed a tactically sound strategy to get around it, one that he normally would scoff at.
Raditz cautiously asked, "Are you sure?" Kakarot calmly said back, "This strategy is easier, going through the barrier would waste Ki." Raditz was surprised by his brother's decision but welcomed it. Kakarot thought to himself, "I don't feel right, killing that guy didn't feel right. I just want to get all this over with." Kakarot and Raditz bashed their way through the ground below going twenty feet deep before smashing their way fifty meters ahead before forcing their way all the way to the top, breaking into the base from below. They erupted from the bottom of a large metal room, roughly the size of a hangar.
The room was full of weapons and ammo, along with a highly advanced looking Tank. The place was full of PDF soldiers running everywhere in response to their sudden arrival. Kakarot suddenly said, "I'll deal with this place, you draw their attention elsewhere." Raditz agreed immediately, saying, "All right!"Raditz flew off but not before firing a "Double Sunday" at the ceiling above the tank burying it in debris. Raditz then fired at the soldier on the ground and flew deeper into the facility with soldiers chasing after him. Kakarot was engaged by a mixed squad of three Cannon-men and three Shield-men while those who didn't chase after Raditz tried to dig up the tank. They surround Kakarot in a circular formation, getting into their Cannon-Shield Formation.
Kakarot disappeared right before they started firing, reappearing above a Cannon-man and Shield-man attached to each other. Kakarot launched an overhead strike which knocked them downward into the ground below. Realizing their opponent is too fast for this formation they switch to a different strategy. One Cannon-man yelled out, "Javelin and Shield Formation!" The whole squad switches up their formation. Two of the Shield-men stood side by side and charged at Kakarot while the two surviving Cannon-men dashed around Kakarot while hitting him with a barrage of red Ki blasts. Kakarot ignored the secondary fire and instead charged the Cannon-men.
The Shield-men flinched at the alien charging them but then regained their nerve and charged toward Kakarot as well. This formation relies on Cannon-men occupying the attacker with a volley in the hopes of allowing Shield-men to attack when the attacker is preoccupied with the volley. Kakarot's choice to ignore the Cannon-men was the right move but the Shield-men couldn't back down. Despite their bravery Kakarot was too strong, he drop-kicked one Shield-man down towards the ground, beating him instantly. By this point the cover fire had stopped in order to avoid hitting their own allies.
He caught the fist of the other and put his open palm on his chest armor. The Shield-man put up a Ki barrier around it forcing Kakarot to use all his strength to punch a hole into the armor. His punch only made it into the chest plate of the armor rather than all the way through. The armor began to spark before losing all its color. Kakarot's Scouter went off and showed a new reading. The 500-power level from earlier dropped to a measly 200. Kakarot realized what this meant, "You bastards, you've been usin' this gear to make yourselves stronger!"
Kakarot suddenly fired off a point-blank Ki wave which vaporized the Shield-man. Kakarot turned to the other two saying, "Don't you people have any pride in your own strength?!" The first Cannon-man flinched when Kakarot turned toward him and the other Cannon-man. Kakarot closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose out of frustration. He angrily said, "And let me guess that Jade guy was using this tech crap too." The second Cannon-man had a look of surprise and said, "J-jade, do you mean the Commander?" The Cannon-man didn't give Kakarot time to answer, he just jumped into a more important question, "What did you do to the Commander?" Kakarot ignored his question and said, "It doesn't matter, I've just lost what little respect I had for your race."
Kakarot appeared in front of the two Cannon-man after which he grabbed the nose of the second Cannon-man's Ki Cannon. Kakarot said, "I'll bet these "toys" you got strapped to yer'selves inflates yer power level as well." He began to panic, frantically attempting to detach himself from his Ki Cannon which proved difficult with the use of only one hand under a stressful situation. Kakarot then said, "If there's one thing, I hate more than elitist bastards, it's a weakling pretending to be strong!"
Before the Cannon-man can detach himself, his Ki Cannon began to vibrate violently. Kakarot looked at it strangely unsure what was about to happen. Suddenly the first Cannon-man smashed the back of the gun and pulled his ally out before the Ki Cannon exploded right in Kakarot's face. He was coughing violently and waving away the smoke and dust that had resulted from the explosion. Kakarot spoke while in his coughing fit, "I onl–"cough"–only–"cough" put a lit-"cough"-little Ki into it–"cough"–why'd it–"cough"-explode?" Kakarot tried to look for the two Cannon-men, but his vision was too blurred from the smoke in his eyes. While Kakarot was struggling to regain his senses the two Cannon-men made it to safety.
The first Cannon-man was helping keep the second Cannon-man up, supporting him with his shoulder. They landed next to four soldiers, half were Cannon-men and the other two were Shield-men. There was also the corpse of a Shield-man who died earlier during the initial attack. They helped get the injured one into a sitting position before checking his status. One soldier paused for a moment, looking at the poor Canon-man's wrecked arm. The Soldier cursed, "Damn…"
The injured Cannon-man spoke softly, strained by his pained arm, "I know–aargh–It looks bad. I'm probably not gonna be of–mmph– much help." That was an understatement, his hand was unrecognizable, and his arm took a lot of damage as well. One of the Shield-men said, "That's a problem, we only have five guys among us." The injured soldier gave him a look of regret. Another Cannon-man said, "The Tank will be underpowered without a sixth man, what are we going to do?" The uninjured Cannon-man asked, "Surely you had more men, where did they go?" One of the Shield-men said, "The other invader was causing trouble so most of them left to confront him."
Another Shield-man added, "By the time we realized how many lefts there were only us four, before you two showed up." They all looked at each other with grim expressions when suddenly a new voice chimed in, "If you need one more man, then allow me to help." A new person joined the group, a man covered in bandages. It was Officer Galena, the sole survivor of New Toru City. He said, "I might not look pretty but my arms and legs work." One of the Shield-men said with a worried expression, "What matters is battle power as well as the condition of your body." One of the Cannon-men gave them a grim look and tapped the armor of the fallen Shield-man.
He said, "I hate to suggest this, but Aier here won't be needing his armor anymore and it might still be functional." No one liked the thought, but they didn't have a choice. One of the Shield-men said, "I hate to say it, but we don't have another option." After a minute of stripping the dead Shield-man of his armor and putting it on Galena he was ready. He then said, "Ok now that I'm ready, what do we do next?" A Shield-man replied by tapping onto a large metal object, revealed to be the large hover tank, the Phaze Tank which was buried during the aliens first entrance. Before finally getting in, Galena asked without looking at the injured soldier, "I overheard some of what he said. Is it true? Did he kill Commander Jade?"
The injured Cannon-man didn't give a response which was enough for the Officer to confirm that it was true. Kakarot had regained his vision, but his Scouter was now malfunctioning, the explosion had damaged it enough to keep him busy trying to get it operational for another minute. Suddenly Kakarot's Scouter lit up, having begun to function again. It pointed him in the direction of an unusually large power level to his left but by the time he saw it, it was too late. A voice called out to him on an intercom unit, "For all the people you murdered and for the Proud Commander Jade, you will be subject to Toru Justice!"
Kakarot only had a matter of seconds to register what was in front of him and realize how strong it was. He was looking at a hovering machine with a single long gun barrel which was glowing with red light. Kakarot's Scouter detected a Power Level of 3,000 before suddenly shorting out due to the previous damage it took. Suddenly a massive Red Ki Wave shot out from the Tank's gun barrel and hit Kakarot dead center. Kakarot blocked with all of his might, but it soon overcame him and launched him out of the Vehicle Bay.
Editor's Notes: Only replacing bad grammar and those kinds of errors.