A humanoid alien in a baggy green bodysuit, armored pads, vest, and an oval-shaped metallic helmet glared up into the sky, putting his hand over the protective shades of his helmet. In a snap, a trail of sweat ran down the soldier's temple and down his cheek. The soldier dropped his jaw and began twitching nervously.
"Huh? What the heck are you waiting around for? We've got like a hundred and fifty more vendors to shake down," another soldier, dressed identically to the terrified one staring at the sky, turned around and approached his companion, dismissing the horror evident in his buddy's body language.
"F-F-Flying…!" the horrified soldier began yapping and pointing at the sky. Despite having said almost nothing of any value, he was already running short of breath and huffing as he pointed at something in the sky with both hands.
"Something's flying? Well, what are you waiting for? Call reinforcements! What's wrong with you today? Nobody's allowed to fly over Imeckan skies, except for Don Kia-sama's fighters…" The other soldier pulled out binoculars to check if what his companion was reporting was true.
"N-No! A man… A man is flying!" the soldier croaked from the bottom of his lungs, finally succeeding in the desperate struggle against the sheer terror of seeing a lone man soaring through the skies above Don City–the hi-tech urban patch of land that was just a continental-size city and served as the only beacon of civilization and splendor in the rotten desert wasteland of Planet Imecka.
"H-Holy shit!" the second soldier dropped his binoculars. "We… We need to report this pronto!" the soldier pulled out a walkie-talkie, fumbling it in between his hands before finally getting himself together to squeeze it tightly with both hands and pull the talkie up to mouth level for a proper report.
Bardock looked around, casually flying through the sky and scanning this incredible, continent-sized urban establishment he'd flown into. It was like the city extended beyond the horizon, equally in all directions. When Bardock first reached the city, he noticed the protective walls with guards stationed on top of them, seated in military turrets able to rip through a fighter jet or a smaller spaceship.
Back there, the grand Imeckan city looked quite miserable. It was just rusty pipes and industrial machinery operated by raggedy crowds of exhausted and famished aliens. If whoever was in charge of the workforce fed them at all, they only spared the bare minimum necessary for them to survive. Even those industrial layers of society, the factories and the networks of conveyor belts, sifting through scrap and busted spaceship parts, seemed to last forever.
A burst of speed later, Bardock reached the residential area where all those workers must have lived. Bardock couldn't yet make it out if they were slaves or indentured servants, but he's seen enough to doubt if living outside the walls, in the ravaged and cruel wasteland, surrounded by marauders and bandits on all sides, beat living inside the city and slaving one's life away one shave of it away each day. The further Bardock flew toward where the Ultimate Dragon Ball signal on his makeshift radar scouter pointed him to, the more the conditions improved.
After flying over what felt like endless miles of shanty towns and blocky homes built of sheets of scrap put together, Bardock finally reached the taller buildings that resembled more of the level of civilization available to most planets hosting civilizations capable of sending their representatives to the stars. It was like night and day, compared to the outermost layers of junkyards and factories producing nobody knew what.
While causing trouble wasn't at the forefront of Bardock's mind, seeing belts of factories that expanded for endless miles and stacked conveyor belt roads almost to the level where they could graze the skies, frail and starved alien races covered with horrific chemical burns from the horrid acidic rains they weren't used to because they weren't native to their homeworlds, made Bardock gnash his teeth and want to blow this whole planet up after his business with it was concluded.
Even the terror of the Frieza Army had to have been preferable to this…
Before Bardock could find a suitable swear word to define what he saw, a violet blast rocked him and stunned him in place. Bardock looked down with a grim stare, seeing a line of heavy industrial tanks stacked together and aiming up at him. Hiding behind them was a horde of tiny battle-powered soldiers, lugging anti-spacecraft cannons over their shoulders and looking like they were fully willing to use them.
"Halt!" a mechanically augmented voice that was shaking and had no presence or authority behind it whatsoever ordered Bardock. It was clear that the Saiyan's survival and lack of scrapes after being hit by a direct tank blast shook the resolve of the soldiers to be able to contain the flying man. "Flying is forbidden in the Imeckan skies! No spacecraft can enter or leave the planet! Offenders are punished with fines up to 63 billion Gammets!"
"You've got to be kidding me…" Bardock gnashed his teeth. He was wondering if blowing this ludicrous conga line of military machines was truly the best option. He couldn't see anything in their employ being of any threat to him and able to do much worse than ruffle his hood. In addition, causing too much of a ruckus and picking a fight with the Imeckan military would've meant a more troublesome time securing the Ultimate Dragon Ball.
"If you don't have any Gammets on you, you're allowed to work your debt off! A strong guy like you could probably earn as much as 4200 Gammets a day! What do you think? Pretty sweet, right? Makes you wanna land and turn yourself in, doesn't it?" the soldier began chuckling nervously while sweating off his helmet and needing to rub his arm to wipe the sweat off his face.
"Tsk… I should've been more careful," Bardock groaned, raising his forearm and channeling a Ki blast, before squeezing it in his hand and causing a vicious explosion that sank him in the cover of smoke and shook the ground that these heavyweight military machines rolled around on. While the soldiers scrambled to return to their feet and the tanks scanned the skies for any trace of Bardock, the Saiyan used the cover of smoke to plunge down and out of the wall of dust to ground himself and shuffle in between the buildings. Because of his incredible speed and ability to control his Ki, Bardock slipped away completely unnoticed.
"Report, Security Unit #11! What is the status of the sentient flying invader?" a husky voice made the soldier's headset shake and vibrate to where the troop had to push it away from his ear to be able to stand it.
"The invader appears to have blown himself up, Gale-san!" the soldier reported. "The outstanding military might of the Imeckan Security Unit #11 and our flawless negotiation tactics made the invader see that there's no other choice but to submit and accept his own inevitable destruction!"
"Excellent, you even made the attacker use their own weapons to take their life, sparing the plasma shells that cost 9000 Gammets per unit! I see a bright future ahead of you, Troop No. 917!" the authority figure on the other end commended the negotiating troop before shutting off the connection and leaving the rumbling military brigade to return to HQ.
"Give me a break… Are those guys actual morons?" Bardock muttered to himself while pressing his back against the wall in a dark alleyway and checking on if the heavy infantry brigade of the Imeckan military truly bought his disappearing trick. "I guess you don't need to work your brain too hard to oppress some trapped aliens unfortunate enough to end up in this dump."
Turning around, Bardock took off in a blitz, dashing across the alleyways and sticking to them on his way toward the place that had his prize–the Ultimate Dragon Ball. The sooner Bardock found it, the sooner he could take off from this place already. The Ultimate Dragon Ball signal was impossible to ignore after Bardock peeked out from the alleyway corner and laid his eyes on a relatively small metallic building. He wasn't sure which of the buildings in this block had his Ultimate Dragon Ball, but checking all of them would have only taken him a short while.
The moment Bardock walked into what looked like a warehouse selling its wares, most of which was absolute rubbish, he knew that this must have been the place. One of those bandit groups must have found the Ultimate Dragon Ball and sold it for some food and scrap metal parts from the recycled, scrapped spacecraft that were being processed in the countless factories across the industrial belt of Don City. It made sense that the intergalactic wishing marble would be here. The only matter of importance now was to find it.
With a judgmental stare, Bardock began strutting across the stacked warehouse that proudly displayed the wares for all to see. The swollen hired muscle that didn't look much different from the bandits and marauders Bardock ran into in the wasteland stood with their arms, tentacles, or pincers crossed, staring the potential buyers down. Why anyone would bother stealing any of this junk? Most of it was just polished, dysfunctional spacecraft parts. Not even if Bardock were a gambling man, would he bet on any of them being any good at helping a spaceship get off the ground.
"They're not selling these people a way to get off this place. They're selling them a dream of one day being able to…" Bardock mumbled to himself. He was no Imeckan economy expert, but the amount of zeroes on those prices suggested the Imeckan dream was exorbitantly expensive. "Where is that damned thing?" Bardock began growing more and more frustrated because of his lack of success at finding the Ultimate Dragon Ball.
That was when he heard muzzled walkie-talkie banter and two chipper soldiers walking into the place. Not wanting to take any chances and be recognized, Bardock leaned down to pretend to be very interested in a bunch of capacitors that had the charging rods completely stripped of their conductors and therefore rendered incapable of doing what it was capacitors did. Even if they still kept their conductors, the rods were crushed and bent out of shape, so activating such a spacecraft would only make it short out and blow up on the spot because the capacitor conductor rods were touching each other. Heck, they were almost wrapped around one another and flattened to the upper side of the capacitor wall.
"The price of operating your business inside Don City is 450,000 Gammets a day. Cough it up, off-worlder," the soldier, appearing in a good mood, stopped by the vendor and placed a storage unit similar to a briefcase for the merchant to stack the Gammets necessary to pay for his stay and license to sell in the city walls and away from the chaos of the wasteland outside.
"I hoped that we'd be able to make a deal…" the merchant who looked like a frail and short crustacean with an oval-shaped head and two slug-like eyes sticking out like antennae from the sides shrugged, reaching underneath a stack of wares he stored close to him as opposed to letting them clutter the rest of the warehouse he sold from.
"For your sake, I hope that it's not some kind of appeal for mercy rubbish. We're in a good mood, but there's a limit to how much comedy we can take before the mood's ruined. If you can't pay up, you shouldn't have hired those wastelanders to work as your muscle," a soldier looked at his companion as the two snickered at each other, figuring that they were about to have to evict yet another cheapskate merchant, rough 'em up, throw them out, and confiscate their goods as compensation for occupying the security's time with being unable to pay up the fees.
"No, no, no…!" the merchant yelped out, straightening up after removing a greasy piece of cloth that he bundled in both hands. "I've heard that Don Kia-sama loves jewelry and it just so happened that one of my contacts in the wasteland managed to get his hands on something precious. Surely a lump of jewelry as massive as this is worth a few million Gammets, right? That should buy me at least a week of business in Don City, right?"
"Hmm…" the soldier leaned down as the merchant moved the cloth away and revealed a shining orange marble with a bundle of black stars decorating it. "It's got a nice shine to it and, somehow, it doesn't seem to get messy from being held in your industrial muck all day, but… Those black stars are kind of an eyesore! You know a jewel's supposed to look nice, right?"
"Black stars!?" Bardock stood up and turned around, opening his eyes wide as he stared at the Ultimate Dragon Ball pressed in the merchant's hands and being offered for free to the soldiers.
"I hope you didn't pay extra for the lug that brought you this little marble, 'cause it's mondo garbage!" the second soldier laughed out, clutching his abdomen not to crack up completely.
"I… I couldn't afford to pay him the price for a gemstone, so I had another mercenary kill him so that I didn't need to pay that price… After realizing that he's just killed another man for it, the other mercenary generously decided to not charge me for the retrieval of this ware…" The merchant bundled his head in his red, shaking hands, contemplating the lengths he had to go through to pass this mystical marble off to the soldiers who seemed completely dismissive of its properties. "Please… Just bring it to Don Kia-sama… A man had to die to bring this gem into Don City… That has to be worth something, right?"
"Not really. In Imecka, your life is only worth the value you provide to Don Kia-sama. I never understood why you merchants pay those worthless scumbags when their lives are worth not a single Gammet," the first soldier looked a little uncomfortable dismissing the Ultimate Dragon Ball while the second seemed chipper about making the merchant feel miserable.
"It's because, without their aid, we wouldn't be able to secure any wares at all! Besides, without muscle, anyone could just walk into my store and take anything they want! You security goons don't protect the merchants, even if we pay Don Kia-sama his exorbitant fees!" the merchant was treading on a very thin line as even the swollen muscle he paid for protecting him began sweating and turning to look away, just to pretend like they didn't see the man getting shot in case the soldiers would punish the merchant for mouthing off.
"You sleazy off-worlder!" the soldier reached in and grabbed the oversized head of the merchant, slamming it down at the table he displayed his wares on and letting the whining merchant collapse on his knees and back, making a mess of the stacked junk he had nearby. "After Don Kia-sama opens up his city for greedy opportunists such as yourself to sell your junk to other freeloaders, you start mouthing off about his boundless generosity!? Do I have to remind you that you were the one flying into his planet, blatantly ignoring the laws he set up to grant this lawless wasteland some order!? If I were him, which I am not, because I am nowhere near as handsome and strong and intelligent and brave, I'd have had you and the rest of you outsider filth disintegrated and scattered to serve as fertilizer for the Imeckan soil you ride your loud hovercars and bikes on!"
"Old man," Bardock turned around and began slowly approaching the vendor, removing his hood and flinging his raggedy cloak aside while cracking his knuckles. "I'll kick these guys' asses for you if you give me that ball."
"What's that!? A wastelander who doesn't know their pla…!?" a soldier turned around, pulling out a blaster and almost succeeding in taking aim at Bardock. Before he could raise his arms or finish the sentence, Bardock vanished with a shrill snap, appeared before the trigger-happy soldier, and push-kicked him out through the wall with a raucous rumble.
"Oh, man…" Bardock muttered, rubbing the back of his neck and looking like he regretted crashing the soldier out through the building, as he turned to his stunned companion. "Okay, this one's a freebie, just to show you I mean business. We can still make an arrangement for this asshole here."
"Wh…Who are you!?" the terrified soldier flopped on his rear, beginning to crawl back with a long and sweaty face, cluttered with twitching facial muscles. With a helmet that bent to awkwardly hang over the soldier's head and barely stay on it, the appalled bully fled the building, leaving Bardock as the first and the last person in the line, bargaining for the Ultimate Dragon Ball.
"Damn… Showed my hand too early again, huh?" Bardock scratched the back of his head, feeling like a complete fool since he now had nothing to bargain with. "I don't really have any of those Gammets that are all the rage on this planet, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that this guy's going to be back with reinforcements. We can still make a deal and I can flatten any number of losers that come here looking for a fight."
"Y-You're… You're a S-Saiyan… Aren't you?" the spaced-out merchant babbled out through lips so devoid of blood flow that even his red skin turned blush.
"So, you know about us? That's ought to make things easier…" Bardock straightened up and faced the merchant holding the Ultimate Dragon Ball. Even if Earth's survival depended on it and Bardock could've snagged it from the man's hands and been halfway across the planet by the time the merchant even blinked once, Bardock wanted to make a deal and make this right.
"Most people know about your kind, though only by reputation," a purple-skinned, extremely muscular humanoid alien with purple skin, decorated with salad-green dots, visible gills, and webbed flaps on its cheeks, approached Bardock from behind. The fishy-looking alien had a mushroom-shaped head. His red eyes had no pupils or eyebrows, making him look a bit shark-like. "Rumor is, your kind's visited this planet once, and it's because of you guys that it's all screwed up like this."
"Saiyans have visited Planet Imecka, I know about that," Bardock closed his eyes and turned a blind eye to the accusations. "However, ruining a planet's economy just isn't our style. We're much more direct about the calamity we bring about."
"It's because of your kind that flying is prohibited in Planet Imecka and nobody can land or leave," the merchant explained. "After making the deal with the devil to recall his hellhounds, Don Kia permanently forbade any ships from entering or leaving the planet's atmosphere. Any offenders are captured, their ships are confiscated and they're forced to work off their penalty."
"Wait, entering the planet's atmosphere is forbidden? S-Shit!" Bardock gnashed his teeth, shooting his eyes wide open in shock. "Launch! I shouldn't have left her hovering… Where is that Don Kee guy or whatever!? If he's got Launch, I'll give him a piece of my mind!"
"Don Kia is in the largest building in the center of Don City," the purple-skinned, shredded fish guy placed a webbed arm over Bardock's shoulder, rearing a line of razor-sharp teeth. "The guy's so paranoid about you Saiyans coming back to finish the job of stripping him away of his little messed up kingdom that he's hired a ludicrously powerful mercenary who's said to be just about the only guy able to kill a Saiyan."
"You should ask Frieza and his bloodline how trying to exterminate Saiyans ended up going for him," Bardock flashed a deadly glare toward the handsy wastelander muscle, who jumped back and removed his hand as if scalded by hot water. "The Saiyans are the strongest warrior race in the universe, and not for the universe's lack of trying to strip us of that title…"
"I don't know, Saiyan…" the purple gill-man shrugged with a smug look on his face. "If there's one thing Don Kia loves more than anything is his Gammets, and his fabled mercenary if he even exists, is getting paid exorbitant amounts of money despite sitting on his ass, just waiting for Saiyans to show up. Who knows, he might just be a load of hot air to keep the bandit bands from invading Don City or the oppressed merchants from rising up and sieging the Don Plaza, but… The talk amongst those that believe in him is that he refuses to fight anything other than Saiyans, which is why no one outside the Plaza has seen him."
Only the slam of Bardock's hand against the counter that bounced off the ground from the controlled pressure and made the slug-eyed merchant quiver in his boots shut the muscle-headed goon up.
"It's your lucky day, geezer. I'm heading to this Don Plaza, it seems, because they probably caught my companion. Fortunately for you, I've got decades of rebellion experience rebelling against Planet Vegeta and the Frieza Army. For the price of that Ultimate Dragon Ball, I'll topple this damn tyranny for you in one noisy trip," Bardock smirked with a cocky look on his face. Seeing the confidence brimming in this mysterious Saiyan's expression, the split-eyed merchant nodded.
"I'll be back for that once I'm done," Bardock said before turning around and strutting toward the exit. Feeling stuffy in his spacesuit, the Saiyan ripped it off and revealed a chiseled physique stuffed inside modified Saiyan battle armor bearing the Capsule Corps logo on the back. "Who knows, maybe I'll be able to validate those fancy bedtime stories about your wonder merc too?" Bardock smirked after glaring back at the broad-shouldered wastelander.
After coloring his expression with grim seriousness and resolving himself to save Launch and blow this tyrannical government of Don Kia up, liberating the slaves and indentured servants trapped on Planet Imecka to finally be able to leave, Bardock took off, shaking the ground beneath his feet and inviting challenge from all the patrols and hefty lumps of military machinery under Don Kia's payroll.