Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Playing Raditz's Game ❯ Kickoff ( Chapter 2 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Raditz rose the following morning as a red sun crested in the distance. He sat up slowly from the ground which he had called his bed and cracked his thick neck and all ten of his fingers. Today was the day he began clean up duty on the job his brother had been sent out to do over two decades ago. He was deeply ashamed for his brother's inexcusable incompetence and found quickly that even the faintest thought regarding Kakarrot at that moment filled him with reproach. Raditz had wanted so badly, whether he would admit it or not, to find a little brother he could boast about. Instead he found Kakarrot who was so clearly wrong in the head that Raditz was having trouble trying to even conceive a situation that could have caused such trauma. He had heard of young Saiyans knocking their skulls as infants and having a fair few oddities later in life, but not like Kakarrot. His brother should have been fierce and bloodthirsty like all other Saiyans, but somehow his personality was unmistakably gentle.

Raditz kept coming back to the word disappointment.

But Kakarrot was not Raditz's current concern. He had already dealt with that matter the night before by exporting his brother and nephew off of their forsaken planet. They were both in Nappa's hands now, or at least they would be in approximately two months' travel time when they would arrive at the purging station. Estimated, he had about as long to wait until the second pod he requested came crashing through the stratosphere for his use. That meant he had two entire months, sixty one whole days, to drag out the annihilation of the Earth. The concept was almost laughable, if it weren't for the fact Raditz was deeply troubled by exactly how to go about the task.

The people on this planet were weak. There was nothing to deter him from utterly slaughtering every one in his path even without the use of his Oozaru transformation, a technique he could use in roughly three days time, judging by the wide and waxing moon he had observed briefly in the night. Raditz didn't know how to use the artificial moon technique and so he was completely reliant on the natural lunar phases of any planet he was sent to purge. By chance it turned out a full moon on Earth was near and the alluring promise made Raditz smirk into the foggy morning blissfully. Stretching once more, the warrior stood at the edge of his original pod's crater and formulated his plan for the day.

He needed to make his presence known.

Destroying the largest city he could find sounded like an excellent way to start and so he entered the thought on his mental tablet. In an hour or so he would see about taking flight and scoping out the immediately surrounding areas in search for a good, sprawling metropolis to massacre. He could already hear the terrified screams and yells, the tones of which were almost akin to music for his Saiyan ears. Years of working steadily for Frieza and under King Vegeta before that had given Raditz an uncanny ability to judge the weak points in structures so that with a few well-placed ki blasts, he could collapse buildings left, right, and center without even the appearance of effort.

But first... first he needed to find something to eat.

With that thought in mind, Raditz sniffed the air and placed a large hand on his stomach as the organ growled persistently. His nose was sensitive like all Saiyans and the air around him smelt faintly of salt and brine on the breeze. He knew those scents to be synonymous with the presence of an ocean which in turn meant fish, crustaceans, and maybe even tasty cephalopods. The thought motivated him and after finding an appropriate place for his morning piss, he followed the stench of the beach to water.

The ocean he smelt was the same one he had flown over looking for that stupid little island on which he had found Kakarrot, and true to fashion, it was abundantly full of delicious sea life once he looked a mile or two off the coast. Bigger fish lived in deeper water as a general rule, and since Raditz had a large appetite the more beastly sized animal he could catch, the better. He wasted no time in assuaging his stomach and quite hastily had devoured a great many large and scrumptious fish. There was something nice about eating food he had trapped or otherwise caught himself. Though it was obviously more troublesome, he preferred it any day to eating the mess hall styled food available to him when he was 'home' at the purging station.

With the issue of his hunger sated for the moment, Raditz recalled once more that his initial plan had been to destroy a city that day. But in the afterglow of his hunt Raditz realized that would have to wait. He wanted to visit that dopey little island to see the murdered earthlings if only to bask in the fruits of his domination of his brother's will.

Thirty minutes later and Raditz found himself dipping down out of the sky onto a bloody beach. It had been more difficult to find the second time because there were no readings on his scouter to lead him there and he hadn't had the foresight to record the island's coordinates. By memory he found the island exactly as Kakarrot had led him to believe he would. Mountains of fleshy carcasses were stacked upon the formerly white sand. He could tell where at first Kakarrot had been painstakingly careful. There were some bodies which laid perfectly as if they were merely sleeping. But then the body next to them would be laying at an awkward, unnatural angle or the eyes would be open and glassy. Raditz smirked, kicking one of the smaller bodies to the side and watching gleefully as its jaw lolled, the pressures of rigor mortis having deteriorated in the island's heat. He vaguely counted the cadavers but stopped when he reached forty or so, having grown tired of the smell and deciding that Kakarrot wouldn't have gone that far without completion.

“I hope you're happy.”

The sudden intrusion of a female voice startled the Saiyan warrior, and he whirled around to find a woman standing on the beach. Her eyes betrayed her brokenness and Raditz laughed, regaining his composure. He recognized her now; this was one of Kakarrot's friends, the blue haired woman. He had seen her here just yesterday when this beach had still been pristine. Apparently she had had the same idea as him... what a stupid woman.

“Come to see my little brother's handiwork, have you?” he leered.

She took a small, almost imperceptible step back and away from him then stood her ground. “No. I... I came to see you.”

His curiosity was piqued. He hadn't seen that coming in the slightest. “Well, then?”

“I know you've killed them,” she said. “Gohan and Goku, I know they're gone. None of my friends can sense them anymore.” Her voice was resigned, accepting. Raditz would almost think her detached completely if it weren't for the desolation that leaked from every fiber of her being and radiated from her presence. He looked her over and noted that this sadness suited her, and so he did not correct her that his brother and nephew were actually still living, though they might soon wish they were dead.

“Get to your point, little earth woman,” he spat.

“You've killed them,” she repeated. “So... so you've got no more purpose here, right? Just leave. Please.”

Now Raditz truly laughed. How delusional, how utterly bat shit insane. Did she really think her intervention, that politeness and an appeal to mercy would make him leave? He clutched his side and slapped his knee while her face painted itself red from her neck to her brow. Raditz stifled his laugh and looked upon her again. Embarrassment suited her, too, he decided. He stepped toward her.

“What is your name?” he asked, circling her. She was much smaller than him, but so were most creatures from the planets he purged. Though he knew she must be terribly afraid, she refused to shrink back from him again. Not that she had anywhere to go.

“Bulma,” she answered.

“Bulma,” he repeated. “Bulma. Let me explain this in a way that you can understand it, Bulma. I intend to finish my brother's failed assignment. I will annihilate this planet and everyone and everything in it. I will leave no flesh and blood creature alive, no city standing. I will end them all and there is nothing you can say or do to change that by way of flattery or any other means. Not you, not your toy soldier friends.”

To her credit, Bulma didn't flinch. “How long?” she asked.

Raditz's brow furrowed. “How long? You ask how long?”

She swallowed harshly. “How long until you do all of those things?”

The audacity of the question shocked him and the answer slipped from his lips unchecked. “A week, maybe more.”

“Okay,” she said. And there it was again. Resignation. Acceptance.

Raditz understood then that the woman before him bore no fear of death, that stupidity hadn't brought her here to meet him. No, bravery had. Stupid bravery, the bravery of one who already knew that inevitable death was at hand. The same bravery of his father when Bardock had tried to face Frieza alone. Bulma reached in her pocket and thew the small device she retrieved onto the bloody beach. In its place a primitive ship appeared and when she turned her back to board, Raditz let her go.

She could die another day.

Raditz left the island then, too, briefly looking back to incinerate the mess with a healthy dosage of ki. He took out the little pink house along with the mass grave, the building and bodies turning to ash and either blowing away in the wind or becoming one with the bloodied sand.

He turned away and reminded himself he was looking for a city. With a burst of energy he set his course back to the mainland, reveling in the sensation of flight. Raditz liked the feeling of going somewhere with a definite purpose. A soldier born and bred, he needed order and a plan to feel comfortable. He planned each day meticulously and when something unforeseen came up, he adjusted accordingly. Adaptability was synonymous with survival in the Cold Empire's purging corps and Raditz was built to survive.

For what seemed like hours he circled the skies, an unimpressed eye falling on the wonders of Mount Paozu and the surrounding area. The entirety of the planet his brother had called home bored him. Nothing caught his attention and more then once, he tossed a volley of blasts at the ancient rock of the mountains to entertain himself. Though he did not know it, one of these blasts destroyed his brother's home, burying Kakarott's wife and father-in-law in the rubble.

No one would ever know what became of Chi-chi. In the grand scheme of things, it wouldn't even matter.


That night at Capsule Corporation, Bulma locked herself in her room. She took a long shower and clambered into bed with no desire for anything or anyone. She and Yamcha were off, and not even the impending end of the world would make her lower her standards to take him back. And the world was ending. Raditz was here and Goku was dead. There was nothing to be done, unless...

Kami, to be a genius she was so dumb.

The heiress leapt from her bed, clicking on her lamp and rifling through her desk for her old dragon radar. If she could just find the dragon balls, then they could just wish this all away and back to normal. Raditz had cited a week until the earth's destruction. That was plenty of time if she and the others hauled ass. Her brain was working at a thousand miles an hour at the prospect. Excitedly she turned the radar on and the familiar blips of light flickered onto the grid. One, two, three, four, five, six... Six? The radar showed only six dragon balls when she well knew that there were seven.

Bulma screamed and screamed. “Gohan!”

Goku's precious baby boy had been wearing a dragon ball on his cap and now one of the balls had disappeared off the face of the planet, right as the energy signals of both father and son had vanished, too. Bulma's heart felt like it was going to explode. Yes, the dragon balls were now obsolete, but she had every reason to believe that they were alive. She clutched the radar close her her heart and tears welled in her eyes.

“That brute wouldn't have sent away your bodies,” she whispered. “You're okay. You've got to be.”

The thought put her at ease. She still knew that she would die along with everyone else on her planet. There would be no wishes, and she knew there was no way that Goku would be coming back to rescue them all. Raditz had sent him away, and she felt certain she could count it as a trustworthy fact that her oldest friend was thoroughly incapacitated. But he was alive. That baby was alive. And if nothing else, she knew she could count on it that her death and the death of her planet would be avenged.