[Review response to JohnDoes: You're right, Goten and Trunks are actually much stronger than Bardock right now! They're just quite surprised that this seemingly random Saiyan guy could survive Cooler for so long, defying his own odds. Cooler's power level in his fifth form is said to be around 470,000,000, but of course it would be higher at this point in time. (After 13 years of extended existence, I think it would be, let's say, 790,000,000.) The Namekian healers from a few chapters ago greatly helped Bardock catch up to Cooler's fourth form, and the wish inadvertently restoring his health again just made him that much stronger, putting Bardock just under Cooler's final form. And of course, he's going to be healed once again in this chapter, but the Zenkai won't be as large as before because Bardock managed to close the gap in power between him and Cooler, to an extent. To answer the other parts of your much appreciated review, I actually considered weekly uploads to be almost too fast! I just want to upload at a steady and consistent pace for now. And I did have almost everything ready to post this fic to Wattpad like I did with my Raditz fic, but the site wouldn't let me upload images (mostly sketches I made for this fic) too easily. It frustrated me to no end, but eventually I will post this story there too. Your Tournament of Power idea is something I never considered! A certain other thing you've mentioned, though… L- Let's just continue the story, eh?]

[Thanks again to all of you who decided to take a look at this story!]

Chapter 8: Family Ties and Celebrations

The trio on New Namek had plenty of time to discuss things on the way back to the Namekians.

Firstly, Trunks asked Bardock, "Since you're a Saiyan, where have you been all these years since the Saiyan home world got destroyed?"

Bardock replied dismissively, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Trunks chuckled. "Haha! Try us! We've seen our fair share of weird stuff on Earth."

'"Earth"?' Bardock blinked in surprise. He needed to ask Trunks this one thing first… "Hold that thought - The day before before Planet Vegeta was destroyed, Gine and I sent our youngest son to that planet to escape our world's demise!"

Trunks and Goten looked at him with stunned faces. "Woah, what?" Goten blurted out.

Bardock continued, "Since you two are both Saiyans… is my son Kakarot your father?"

The two children looked at Bardock, completely astonished. They then looked at each other.

"No way, Goten…!"

"Trunks?" Goten asked cluelessly.

"Nooo… WAY, Goten! This is awesome!" Trunks beamed.

"Who's Kakarot again?" Goten asked, still clueless.

"Goten, you dummy! You don't remember? That's what my dad calls your dad! His Saiyan name? Remember now?"

Goten 'ohhh'ed in realisation. "I only ever hear your dad say that name so I didn't recognise it." He then said, "So that means…"

"This guy here is your Grandpa!" Trunks proclaimed.

"He's my Grandpa?!" Goten repeated in surprise.

"My grandson…?!" Bardock stared at Goten open-mouthed.

"Oh boy! That's so cool! I have another Grandpa!" Goten gave a little cheer. "And you look so much like my dad! It's crazy!"

Bardock finally spoke his mind. "I can't believe my luck… Those Namekians managed to send my own bloodline here to help me." He chuckled, and breathed out, "Kakarot's kid…"

He shook his head in disbelief. The kids looked at him, and he at Goten for a moment, studying the boy. ""Goten"… That's not a very Saiyan name, is it?"

"…So?" Goten pouted. "I'm only half Saiyan."

Bardock accepted that explanation with a dismissive eye-roll and changed the subject. "Hold on. You said that Trunks' father calls my son Kakarot. Trunks, who the hell is your father?"

Trunks replied with his own eye-roll, knowing that this would take quite a bit of explaining. "Well, how 'bout I start from the beginning? 'Cause I know for sure we're gonna keep backtracking on stuff. There a ton you don't know, I'm guessing."

Bardock was very eager to learn more about this timeline, so he nodded with a grunt.

"Okay - apparently, my dad and some other Saiyan came to Earth a year after another Saiyan guy did called Radish or somethin' and-"

"Raditz?!" Bardock yelled out, faltering in his flight.

"Huh? You… knew him?" Trunks asked confused.

"He survived?!" Bardock spoke with a hint of surprise. 'Wait, of course he did! He was off-planet on that mission with the Prince! I remember now. Both my sons got away! Well, well. Take that, Frieza.' Bardock thought with some pride.

He paused and answered calmly, "That's my eldest son, for your information." Bardock closed his eyes, so he didn't look like he was overreacting in front of these kids. Bardock's expression froze for a second. "You said "knew him"… What happened to him?" Bardock asked in a serious tone.

Trunks stared at the ground below in open thought. "Hold on a second… They never said he was Goku's brother, and Goten's uncle…! Why didn't they ever tell us that? That sounds a little important!" Trunks scowled.

Goten looked confused. "Huh? I have an uncle?"

Bardock scowled too. "Taken care of, was he?"

"I guess he was," Trunks agreed.

After a brief pause, Bardock continued sullenly, "How disappointing… My son was quite a popular kid. He had a bit of a tempter, though. Sure, he had his merits, but he must've really gotten into the whole planet trading shtick after we… disappeared."

Bardock thought to himself, '…But… he was seemingly never spoken of again… Not even Goten knew he had an uncle. That I don't understand.' He then asked the two, "He was with Frieza's lot, wasn't he?"

Trunks replied, "I dunno. I think so?"

"Hn. He clearly wasn't aware of our planet's real demise. There's no way he would have served under Frieza if he knew that he was the one who destroyed it. In fact, I'm sure he would've tried to get revenge," Bardock muttered. He then got back on topic. "So… the other two Saiyans. Your father…?"

Trunks replied, "Well, my dad is the Prince of all Saiyans, Vegeta."

"Ve- Vegeta's kid?! Hold on, so you're also the Saiyan Prince! What is Vegeta doing on Earth?!" Bardock asked, perplexed.

"Well, that's what I was leading up to. You know the Dragon Balls?"

Bardock nodded while rolling his eyes, because to him, it was obvious he knew about them.

"There's some on Earth, and before I was born, he came to Earth with… Nappy? No… Nappa! To use them."

Bardock recognised Nappa's name and chuckled at the naming mistake. He was very intrigued and surprised to know there were Dragon Balls on the planet he sent his son away to.

"Dad told me he was gonna use them to defeat Frieza. But because our friend Piccolo, who's a Namekian, died, the Dragon Balls died too, so the wish couldn't happen."

'Thank whoever was responsible for that…' Bardock thought, crossing his arms. He then pondered intuitively, 'I bet he wanted to become immortal to stop Frieza. The universe would have been screwed if he had his way, that little brat.' Bardock still envisaged Vegeta as that stuck-up royal snot who insulted everyone lesser than him. Same went for his cowardly father of the same name.

Trunks continued, "Goten's dad stopped my dad, and a few other guys like our friend Krillin, and Goten's brother Gohan… and a guy called… Ya…ji…robe…, I think?" Trunks barely recollected that name.

Bardock had his brows lowered as he took it all in. "So you have an older brother, Goten? …Heh, another grandson, who even helped my son defeat the Prince! I would've loved to have seen his face - Beaten by the low class!" Bardock grinned smugly.

Trunks looked a little perplexed by Bardock's sudden disrespect towards his own prince. Bardock noticed him looking at him. "…What! From what I heard of him and what little I saw of him, he was a nasty little brat. Looked down upon everyone and everything. Excuse me if I don't exactly like him 'cause of how he viewed the lower classes."

Trunks seemed to accept Bardock's logic, and asked, "So what do you remember about dad's planet? What kind of job did you have anyway?"

Bardock frowned. "The only real job a Saiyan could have under Frieza, and Cold before him, was to be a… mercenary," he said cautiously while looking at Goten. 'Why can't I bring myself to say I was the commander of an elimination squad? Oh, that's right. These kids are capable of killing me. Can't have them knowing I essentially used to do what Salza's lot did.'

He elaborated, "Merc groups were a common thing back then. I was the leader of a team of Low-class warriors."

When Goten heard the word 'mercenary', he felt a little angry; he'd heard being one of those was quite a bad thing. Goten felt saddened by the fact Bardock worked as one because of Frieza. "That's really bad! Frieza was wrong for making you do mercenary stuff!"

Bardock responded, "Saiyans were still a brutal race. We were feared warriors by many, even without Frieza's influence. That's just how Saiyan society was."

"Right…" Trunks said with a frown, "But… you don't seem to really be into that sort of thing though. I mean, you're not here destroying stuff," Trunks commented.

"Ugh… kid, look," Bardock sighed, "Why would I destroy everything if I had no idea where I was? Besides, the 'destroying' shtick wasn't my idea. It was mostly the Elite's and Frieza's idea. And not all of us fought in battles either. There were quite a few non-combatant Saiyans who were too gentle to be decent warriors."

"Huh… I get it. Wait. You didn't know where you were? How did you even get here if you didn't know?" Trunks looked at him, confused.

"I'm guessing the Nameks'll want that explanation too. Too bad I don't really have much of an answer," Bardock responded a little vaguely.

"Okay…" Trunks nodded slowly with a brow raised.

"That's mysteriousss…" Goten chimed in with a spooky tone.

"Enough," Bardock stated. He raised his head, then noticed their destination coming into view. "We're here now. We'll talk more later."

Trunks and Goten nodded and the three descended into the village, where Grand Elder Moori and everyone else had gathered to greet them in celebration. Loud cheers and whoops could be heard. Every face was beaming and they were all directed at the three saviours.

"You did it!" Tsuburi sighed in relief and bowed gratefully at them.

"We sure did!" Trunks pointed a thumb to himself.

"Bardock! Trunks! Goten!"

"We owe you our lives!"

"Let's celebrate!"

"You're heroes!"

"Geez… can they shut up, already? I'm starving," Bardock muttered his himself while rubbing his temples. He was more cranky as a result of being the centre of attention, but refrained from being too antisocial for the sake of everyone having a good time. He just knew that Gine would chide him for ruining the fun.

"Alright, let's settle down. I have some things I need to say," Grand Elder Moori raised his voice as everyone fell into silence. "First of all. From the bottom of our hearts… thank you for defeating the invaders, including the one behind it all. And secondly, we will prepare a feast for you, for all you have done. You may know this Bardock, but the kids might be unaware… We Namekians do not need to eat. Rather, we live by consuming water alone."

"Oh yeah! Piccolo just drinks stuff whenever we have food together!" Goten piped up. "He can cook up a super tasty grill, though."

"Is that so?" Moori replied. "Now, we have many kinds of vegetables cultivated in our fields but we lack any meat as we don't need to kill for food," he explained. "I understand that you Earth folk have a varied diet, but… are you okay if it's just-"

"-Veggies? You sure ya got nothing else?" Trunks complained.

"I'll be getting to that, actually," Moori said with a smirk, "Though we do have some bread as well," he added.

"Aw man. No apples… and I hate vegetables!" Goten whined.

'Some Saiyan you are for not liking vegetables.' Bardock looked over at Goten with clear disappointment on his face.

"If I may continue, we now have ships stocked with all kinds of food for any journey. I thought it would be beneficial to leave the supplies be, if that makes sense," Moori said.

"So there's really good food on the ships but you won't let us have any?" Trunks slouched. "Fiiiiine." He resigned himself to sitting on a stool nearby.

Some Namekians stepped forward towards the lookalike Saiyans. "If we may, can we heal your injuries?"

Bardock nodded while Goten spread his arms wide. "I'm not hurt, see?"

"Really? That's a relief," a healer replied.

Another healer turned to Bardock. "You have fought well, Bardock, to ensure that Goten wasn't harmed." Bardock looked at the Namekian then looked away again with a huff.

Very soon into the healing process, he found himself in awe of his increased power. Although he couldn't sense power levels yet, he just knew he was much stronger now.

The healers made their way to Trunks as they finished working on Bardock. They lingered on Trunks for a moment and his whole body felt as good as new. "Woah, thanks guys! My hip's all better! How'd you do that?" Trunks wondered, grinning.

"You're welcome. Some of us are gifted with the ability to heal, and some are warriors," one Namekian healer explained.

"I wanna be able to heal people too!" Trunks exclaimed.

"Yeah! Imagine if we could heal each other in a fight!" Goten chimed in.

"I'm not sure that you could get such an ability, even if you unlocked your full potential," Moori said.

Bardock sighed, "Can we get to eating? I'm-"

*Rumble*

"Wow, you really are starving!" Trunks laughed at Bardock.

"That wasn't thunder?" Esca asked.

Trunks and Goten laughed while Bardock looked very annoyed, and then everyone else laughed too. Although Bardock would usually want to stay on the sidelines at a gathering like this, he was fine with the hospitality at least. But definitely not the humour directed at him.

Soon enough, some food was brought to the trio and it looked better than they thought it would.

"Huh! Would you look at that! It's a… veggie burger!" Trunks exclaimed.

"And that looks like a cucumber sandwich!" Goten pointed at said sandwich.

Bardock said nothing and took a load of whatever food he saw onto the table in front of him, and began munching. It was no different to his mostly-vegetarian menu courtesy of the people of Planet Plant, so he was used to it.

"Thanks for the food!" Goten shouted politely.

As everyone ate, sans the Namekians, Bardock asked the Grand Elder a question idly. "Moori. It was you who decided the wishes, right?"

Moori replied, "Yes. I stated all three wishes. The first was to provide suitable warriors from Earth for your fight with Cooler, but from that wish, these two children appeared instead, which, of course, we were not expecting at all."

Bardock turned further towards him. "Why specifically from Earth? Is it because Kakarot's there?"

Moori nodded. "Yes, exactly. We thought Goku might have appeared here since he defeated Frieza, or even his other son, or the bald one, Krillin. Or Piccolo… Those four along with Miss Bulma helped save our entire race. Our dragon Porunga chose these two children instead…"

Moori turned to the kids. "…Which is why I must ask you two boys, is Son Goku still with us? And what about the other three? Or, are they less powerful than before?"

Trunks and Goten lowered their brows at the blunt suggestion of their friends and family possibly being dead, though it certainly hadn't been the first time everyone had gone to Otherworld, including themselves.

Goten said with a fiery expression, "No way! Dad's not dead! Or Gohan, Krillin and Piccolo! Dad's not on Earth right now, so maybe that's why he's not here? And my brother has a job and a baby, so he doesn't fight much, and Krillin doesn't fight as much anymore either. Strange though… Piccolo still trains a lot." Goten and Trunks hummed in thought for a moment.

Bardock's eyes widened. 'Wait - Gohan has a baby?! I have a great-grandchild?!' he exclaimed in his mind.

"I'm too young for this nonsense. Stupid time travel curse," he muttered quietly under his breath.

What he didn't realise though, is that Namekians have excellent hearing.

"Bardock? What was that you just said? A time travel curse?" Cargo looked at Bardock, mouth agape.

"Huh? Time travel?" Trunks looked over at him too, along with everyone else.

Bardock recoiled, realising his mistake. "Wha- "Time travel"? Feh! That's not what I said-"

"Namekian hearing is some of the best in the universe. I know what I heard!" Cargo crossed his arms.

"I heard you too, Bardock. Is it true?" Tsuburi asked.

Bardock sighed in defeat as all eyes befell him.

"Yeah, it's true. Just when I thought I was a goner from Frieza's attack on my planet, I somehow ended up on my planet, but at a time before my race even settled on the thing. I was there for a year, before I decided to use a spaceship to find the Saiyans of that time. While I was travelling in the ship, I got a vision of your planet, and then the next thing I knew, I was here."

Everyone was silent as they looked at each other thoughtfully.

"Well that's confusing," Goten commented. "Is your ship here?"

"No. Just me. No idea where that thing ended up." Bardock scratched his head.

The Saiyans of Planet Sadala were going about their business one day until an unmanned spaceship pummelled into their ruler.

Immediately an internal conflict broke out between good and evil Saiyans; it was so bad that even Super Saiyan Gods fought in the war.

The remaining Saiyans left the planet before its eventual annihilation.

Guess which planet they conquered as their new home.

"So you went back in time somehow, because of some curse?" Trunks asked.

"On one of my… expeditions, I came across Kanaasans, who had the ability to see the future. I fought 'em, and was cursed with the ability of seein' visions by one of 'em, because he wanted me to "see the horror of my end". I had no idea I'd be able to travel time to who knows where because of it though," Bardock explained. He then added uncomfortably, "I… would like to stay in this time period, seeing as I probably won't ever be able to return to my own. I wanna see a couple people, and the planet that raised my son."

The Namekians exchanged more glances.

"Well that sort of explains your timely arrival here… In any case, the Dragon Balls will be ready again in 130 Earth days. We can ask Porunga to remove the curse from you if you like?" Esca suggested.

Bardock gaped at Esca. "You'd really do that?" he asked, somewhat stunned.

Esca responded, "Of course. You saved us - Why wouldn't we do something like this for you?"

"Besides," Cargo spoke up, "we wouldn't want to lose you to the flow of whatever unknown time you could be sent to next. Especially since you want to start living in this time, right?"

Bardock nodded his head slightly in gratitude. "What about these two?" He gestured to Trunks and Goten.

Moori said, "My second wish to Porunga was that we would have three spaceships outfitted with all the supplies one would need. So, they can use a ship to travel back to Earth."

The trio contemplated this, until Trunks said, "I don't think that would work, somehow. Even if I knew how to use a spaceship, wouldn't the Earth just decide to fire on us, thinking we're a threat?"

"They won't. The ships resemble Namekian design. Also, you don't need to worry about piloting it; most ships have voice activation and simplified controls, and it is not just in the Namekian language," Moori responded, having inspected the wish-born ships beforehand.

Bardock piped up, "Hey. I want to go to Earth too, so would you be able to make the wish in my absence?"

Moori answered, "Yes, we can. But we don't know what exactly is setting off either your visions or your time travel… I guess it can't be helped. All we can do is wait until the Dragon Balls recharge, anyhow. So you're going with the children then?"

Bardock responded with his arms crossed, "Guess so. You sure there's enough food on that ship, Elder? Saiyans eat a lot of it."

Moori replied with an uncertain tone, "I'm not sure. I did wish for there to be plenty of food on board, but how much is 'plenty' for a Saiyan? This is something I didn't take into account when I made the wish. My apologies."

Bardock shrugged. "It's not a big deal. I'll check it out later. By the way, what was the third wish?"

Moori responded, "The third wish was for all the damage caused by Cooler and his forces to be undone."

Realisation hit Bardock. "So that's why I felt as though I hadn't taken a single hit all of a sudden."

Moori's eyes widened. "Ah, um, I see! Yes! A very useful wish if I do say so… ha. I'm glad it helped." Moori stood up. "In any case, now that you've had your fill, I suggest we all get some rest for your departure."

"Oh? Leaving tomorrow, are we?" Bardock responded in a clipped tone.

"Oh, my apologies! I merely assumed-"

"I'm only messing with you. We were going to leave tomorrow, anyway." Bardock stood up as well.

"We were?" Goten whispered.

"Goten, you really don't wanna see any more of this weird green sky, do you?" Trunks whispered back and turned to look at Goten.

"No…"

"Well let's go to sleep then." Trunks wandered inside.

The trio were provided with bedding and they promptly drifted off to sleep after a hearty meal consisting of only vegetables and bread.

[Author's note: You could say Bardock's 'past' adventures had a real knock-on effect, huh?]