Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Empire ❯ The Daily Grind ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ or any of it's characters.

A.N: no warnings in this chapter really.

A plate of cold meat clattered on the old cheap kitchen table. Kakarott glanced at it and then up at his older brother.

Raditz looked annoyed.

“What?! What do I look like/ Your mother? Eat and don't complain!”

Kakarott rubbed the bruised on his cheek.

As he ate, Raditz talked. He sometimes had the suspicion that his brother liked the sound of his own voice.

“I want you to do whatever Rice tells you. I found out that I'm a candidate for the Royal Guard yesterday and if I make it, I'll be moving nearer to the palace and you'll be staying with him.”

Kakarott liked Rice. He was kind to him and would probably take much better care of him than Raditz ever had anyway. While he wasn't terribly disappointed that he wouldn't be going with his brother, he was still curious as to why.

“Why can't I come with you?' he asked after swallowing a mouthful.

Raditz shot him a look of contempt.

“Because, you idiot, I won't have time to babysit you. I tried to get father to take you, but he's always been a flake when it comes to his brats.”

Kakarott almost snorted. He would never have expected to go to his father's. The man had given him to Raditz at the tender age of five in order to pursue adventure and fame.

Kakarott downed the glass of water that had clattered down near the plate.

He looked up to see Raditz putting on gloves, completing the full regalia of the Royal Guard Academy. He was watching himself in the mirror above the sink. He looked quite pleased with himself. He looked at Kakarott in the mirror, tossing his head.

“Why are you still here?”

Kakarott stood up and put his dishes in th sink. He left through the back door without saying goodbye.

 

He knew almost immediately that Rice wasn't home. He never closed his windows when he was home, only when he went away on a mission. Kakarott sat down on the front steps of the small house.

Raditz would have left by now. He supposed he could go home for a while before he had to go to work.

He wondered if father was home, but he doubted it. An overachiever in his own right, he often accepted more assignments than most lower level soldiers. Kakarott himself had never been like his father and brother. He had never been particularly warlike and was more interested in living quietly. However, such a life had nothing to do with the Saiyan way.

It had begun to rain and he started toward the shopping district. He had a friend who worked in a homey little diner there.

He never remembered the name of the diner. It's sign had faded to the point of being unreadable, but Bulma had told him the name one or twice before. He supposed he'd never thought the name important enough to remember.

It was positioned between a weapon shop and an old bar frequented by retired old veterans who no longer went on purges. It was well lit and gave off a very warm feeling. Kakarott enjoyed being there and often sat inside even when Bulma wasn't there.

Kakarott sat down at the counter. Bulma, who had her blue hair pulled back into a short ponytail, finished taking the order of two soldiers sitting at the counter as well and looked up at him.

She smiled a bright smile that reached her crystal blue eyes. The smile wavered a bit and Kakarott assumed she had seen the bruise on his cheek.

She called out the order and then spoke indistinctly to another waitress before removing her apron and coming out from behind the counter. She motioned toward a window booth and Kakarott followed her.

“Ugh,” She sighed, plopping down on the cracked blue-cushioned seat, “I hate this job. Twelve of Emperor Frieza's soldiers came in here earlier this morning. It was awful! I swear, If someone touches my ass one more time----”

She looked thoroughly harassed in her wrinkled pink uniform. She was Kakarott's best friend, his only friend. Her planet, Earth, had been destroyed and she had been brought here many years ago. She had been one of the few humans to escape slavery.

“---Moving out of the house. I don't know where we're going to find a new roommate. Oh! How are things with your brother?”

She was staring at the bruise on his face. He looked away.

“Okay, I guess,” He said quietly, playing with the salt shaker.

There was a pause in which the blatant lie rang in his ears. He felt stupid for having ever said it.

“What happened?” Bulma pressed, folding a napkin several times.

“Nothing. It's really not---he didn't hurt me bad this time.”

Bulma smiled sadly at him.

“You can always spend the night at my place. My roommates wouldn't mind.”

Kakarott shook his head.

“No, that's okay. Besides, he'd be really pissed if I didn't come home.”

The word “home” felt awkward on his tongue. Kakarott bit his lip as punishment for it.

“Are you hungry? I can get you something and just put it on my tab” she said, looking at him thoughtfully.

His face lit up. He never turned down food.

Bulma raised her eyebrow and handed him the menu

“This is going to cost me a fortune, isn't it?”

Kakarott gave her a playfully evil laugh, flipping through the menu.

 

By the time he left the diner he was full and in a good mood. He felt better than her had in a long while.

It was almost one and time for him to go to work. He worked in an antique shop, Raditz didn't know about it. His boss was human and even though lower level saiyans weren't considered much better than humans, Kakarott knew that Raditz still counted them better than the aliens who lived on Planet Vegeta.

After the death of the last Saiyan king and the advent of Emperor Frieza, many things had changed on Planet Vegeta. Tourism flourished again as it had in the time of the Tuffles and shops like the one Kakarott worked in had arose to satisfy the tourists' desires for alien treasures.

The bell above the door chimed as he pushed the door to the shop open. It was busy today, swarming with tourists and soldiers alike. Kakarott's boss, Alan Krump, waved him over frantically.

Krump was a thin man of about sixty with an extensive receding hairline and a neatly combed gray mustache. Today, he was wearing a blue striped shirt with a brown vest.

“Where have you been?” he asked impatiently, although Kakarott was not late.

Krump looked greedy and excited.

“Oh, I'm sure to make a lot of gold today,” he said, grinning widely.

He thrust a shop apron at Kakarott, who quickly put it on.

“Go and help them over there, they look wealthy,” Krump told him, pointing at the three elites looking at a shelf of old Saiyan weapons.

His stomach turned over nervously, He hated dealing with elites. They were always rude and condescending toward him.

He sighed and made his way over through the excited alien tourists.

“---Seems authentic. Look at it,” The bald elite was saying, he was holding up a shortsword for one of the others to see. The others made thoughtful noises, which meant that the bald elite was the leader.

“Do you need some help?” Kakarott asked loudly, shouting over the noise in the shop.

The bald one turned first and the others followed suit. Kakarott felt his heart skip a beat. The bald man, he was a commander! And not just any commander, but commander of the entire saiyan army, Nappa.

The man seemed to be flattered at how star struck Kakarott was and smirked with pride, standing even straighter.

“What can you tell me about this?” he asked, watching Kakarott intensely.

Kakarott wasn't very bright, but his memory wasn't too shabby. His boss had drilled him about most of the things in the shop than pertained to Saiyan history and he was quite sure he would be able to impress the Commander.

“It's a Saiyan-made short sword, circa 230. It was designed to gut under the ribs. It was most likely used a few years before the annihilation of the Tuffles,” he said confidently.

Commander Nappa's mouth had twitched up at the word “gut” and he'd run his finger along the blade.

“Gut under the ribs, eh? Interesting.”

He turned the blade in his hands before looking at Kakarott again. He studied him for a long time, as if finally really noticing him.

After a few minute, Commander Nappa smiled, a genuine smile one would not expect from someone of his rank.

“What's your name?”

Kakarott was surprised.Why would the Commander of the entire Saiyan army want to know what he was called?

“Kakarott, sir?” he said quietly.
“Kakarott...” The man's eyebrows furrowed in thought. “I've heard that name before. Do you by any chance have a brother?”

Kakarott nodded.

“Yes, sir. Raditz. He's in the Guard Academy.”

The Commander smiled in recognition.

“Yeah, that's right. Your brother is certainly something to be a low level. He's been pissing off born elites almost as much as your father. He's good.” He chuckled a bit before going silent. He looked at Kakarott quite strangely, a look he recognized, but couldn't place.

“Well,” the Commander said after a moment, “I think I'll take the sword. I have the perfect place for it.”

He handed it to Kakarott and he started toward the counter. Kakarott was really glad that the man didn't question him about his own strength or ambitions.

He wrapped the sword in a parcel while Krump rung up the purchase. One of the other elites handled the transaction and the Commander stood between his men with his arms folded, looking at Kakarott with interest.

When the sale was finished, the Commander smiled at Kakarott and then turned to leave.

“If I didnt know any better, I'd say the Commander was smitten with you,” Krump said in a low voice.

Kakarott blinked at him, confused. He hoped that what he said wasn't true. He turned deep red before going to dust some shelves.