Disclaimer: I don`t own it. Bye.
Adrenaline
"Shut up," the brutalized warrior growled emptily at his unseen tormentor, resisting the biting pull at the edge of his senses, literally fighting the oncoming vision off, tooth and nail. It was a disturbing feeling, to be sure. Racing through deep space at close to a thirty-five times the speed of light, bleeding profusely from a dozen major and minor injuries, a blood soaked rag wrapped around his head like a bandana, a badge of pride and honor, of loyalty to his comrades and his people. His armor had shattered in multiple places, one leg was completely numb from the ankle to the knee and the rest of his body was going into adrenal shock.
All in all, Breh Bardock could have - and would have - picked better things to do than getting half-killed while being plagued by visions of futures he could scarcely comprehend, let alone understand or rationalize.
You don't feel the pain
Too much is not enough
"Hope Toma and Celipa are fairing better than I am," Bardock thought, gazing drearily at the main viewport and craning his neck back exhaustedly. It wasn`t long after this that he completely lost conciousness again, be it from blood loss, exhaustion of pain, he didn`t know, nor did he care.
Nobody said this stuff makes any sense
We're hooked again
His ultimate destination was a far different sort of place than the decimated pit of a world known as Meat. Planet Vegeta, normally a place of permanent tension, now it was a place teetering on war. Frieza`s men were out in force, a dozen of them for every Saiyan on the planet. Saucers hovered in low orbit of the planet, Gunpods flew overhead in groups of three and on the streets, anarchy was threatening to break out at any second.
These were things not lost on a specific Saiyan woman,currently draped in a hooded cloak since she was trying to hide herself at least a small bit. Her name was Kerim Celipa, she was a woman in her prime, about five Saiyan years old - twenty by galactic standard. In her arms, she carried two children with a maternal instinct as strong as if they were her own. They weren`t though, one of them was the child of a warrior she had never particularly liked, the other was the child of a warrior she considered a surrogate older brother, and both were sobbing irately at their present conditions.
They were also the main reason Celipa was traveling through alleyways and avoiding small groups of people. If she were alone, it`d be a far different story, but she had been tasked - by herself and by Toma - to take care of the two children, one of which seemed to be on a one-way trip to infant mortality given the amount of blood the boy was slowly losing.
Without a word, the woman dove down another alleyway, and as she did so, the streets erupted in violence. An explosion sounded first, and then it was followed by screams of rage and battle like few that she had ever heard, if only because this time, the majority of those screams were coming not from people being cleared out, but by an evenly fought war of sorts. Frieza`s troops and the Saiyans had been on a hairpin for days now, but that had just snapped.
Point of no return
See how the buildings burn
"Celipa?!" A familiar voice called out as a dazed looking boy lunged into the alleyway, obviously trying to avoid the chaos breaking out all over the place. "Raditz? Is that you?" Celipa asked, hardly able to recognize him for some reason or another. "Yeah! What`s going on?!" The boy demanded, ducking low as an errant blaster shot zipped through the alley, arcing up high and hitting into the side of a building.
The city was already starting to burn though. Fires were raging, brawls were breaking out, utter chaos reigned like nothing else as Celipa glanced around, expression taut in thought and planning. "All Hell is breaking loose," she finally muttered. "We have to go to the Launch Center," she decided, though her voice carried a note of emptiness in it`s resolve. "The Launch Center? Why?" Raditz asked. "The entire world is falling apart around us, we can`t run now!"
"Maybe you can`t, and maybe I can`t, but what about them?" Celipa asked, turning around to face him finally and revealing a still bleeding, though now unconcious Brolli, and an equally unconcious, though uninjured Kakarot. Raditz was silent as a result. For several seconds he could say nothing, only watch the face of his baby brother in recognition.
He knew what he would have to do if they were to get out of it all alive.
"I know a quicker way... It`s probably going to be a bit of a fight but I can handle my own."
"But can you also handle them? And me?"
"You just handle them," Raditz said with the over confidence of any child burdened with something they only barely understood the enormity of. "I`ll protect all three of you with my life if I have to," he growled. "Then lead the way," Celipa ordered.
Light up the night
Such a pretty sight
"Look at him Bardock."
"No..."
"Look at him."
"I won`t listen to you."
"LOOK AT HIM!!!"
"GET OUT OF MY MIND!!!"
An agonizing flash.
Kakarot, grown and magnificent, brutalized beyond words. A boy stood near, a downed Namek lay beside him. Something that resembled Frieza in a vague sort of way, arm outstretched, one eye winced shut, covered in his own blood and grinning like a psychopath as the remains of an explosion went by in the distance.
"Boom!" He voiced with a laugh. But Kakarot was silent, boiling over and then...
"You won`t get away with this..."
A grunt and a growl. The world itself seemed to be tearing apart, piece by bloody piece. Lightning shocked up from everywhere, fire tore and his hair rose up.
"You won`t get away with this!"
Another laugh, but then the albino tyrant halted in his tracks with a gasp, an action replicated by the boy in Saiyan armor. Loudly, a scream echoed through all of the planet, reaching as far out as deep space. Kakarot`s eyes were blank as he looked up, but the fire of gold was rising all around him like a torch bathed in propane and lit ablaze with napalm.
"I WON`T LET YOU GET AWAY WITH THIS!!!"
Adrenaline keeps me in the game
Bardock lurched forward with a gasping scream. What was this all about? Had the entire universe gone completely insane just to try and drag him down with it?
"Kakarot..."
"Behold Bardock, a savior has been born."
Another flash.
Five images of him. One, he was young, maybe two years old in Saiyan years, ten in galactic standard. Another, he was three in Saiyan years, fifteen in galactic standard. Another. He was twenty. Another still, twenty five and standing proud and tall. Another and...
Adrenaline you don't even feel the pain
And he had gold hair and light green eyes.
"A savior who can protect the weak and the good from those like Frieza..."
Vegetasei. Wait, it was -
"And you!"
- exploding and -
"NO!!!"
- and Bardock lurched forward again, gagging up his own blood into the foot of the pod`s meager insides, which were only barely spacious enough for Bardock to feel even remotely comfortable most of the time. Emphasis on most.
Wilder than your wildest dreams
Raggedly holding his head back up, Bardock wiped his mouth off, eyes moistening with tears he could not shed. Was it all real? Or was it just a dream...
When you're going to extremes
"I have to find out..." He muttered balefully, flopping back with a cough. "This can`t be happening... I have to be delirious... Delirious enough to be talking to myse-" "You`re not delirious at all, Bardock. You`re just beginning to know the horrors that we knew..."
"Not again," Bardock begged, finally beginning to let those tears fall. "Oh, but you`ll see these things again. And again. And again, as many times as it takes for you to realize just what kind of monster you are..."
"I`m not a monster," he wept, pride broken, even Saiyan heritage failing to keep everything back. Despite this though, maybe even because of it, the torture continued. Another vision, and a loud scream echoed through the tight confines of the space pod, tearing off into the endless night of deep space.
It takes adrenaline
"My world is tearing itself apart, my son is off on an errand for someone he isn`t even related to and you call this success?!" King Vegeta demanded. "Get out of my sight!" He ordered, vaporizing the unlucky bearer of bad news right then and there, even as the ancient, sturdy palace walls trembled and shuddered from the violence breaking out across the planet.
Toma was silent though, thankfully unnoticed as he hovered at the edge of the doors into the King`s Public Chambers. No guards were present outside, only a row of solid elites lining the way to the throne. "The only good thing about this is that General Nappa is with him, and even that`s jaded at this point!"
"I was right," Toma thought bitterly, listening to events with the ear of a spy, though he wasn`t one by any stretch of the imagination. "Everything is falling apart," he heard. "Captain Zorn!"
"Majesty?"
"Assemble the best warriors available. We`re going to take our grievances to Frieza himself."
"The shit is definately hitting the fan," Toma thought, darting away from the entrance into the chamber and literally flying down the halls of the palace for the exit. When he got outside, it was utter pandemonium, Saiyans and Frieza`s men battling it out all over the place. Blaster shots, fireballs and bodies everywhere, but he wasn`t there to see that. Powering up, To Toma charged down the street, defiantly wading through the chaos without a word, pausing only occasionally to backhand in the faces of several of Frieza`s men.
You don't feel the pain
"STOP IT!!!" Bardock screamed in agony, both mental and physical at once. Again, the images surged through, leaving him only able to see the future in one eye and the past in the other, with both blinded to the course of the present. It was sickening, and eventually, it got to him, but for whatever reason, his mind just wouldn`t shut down. Again and again he screamed, but for all of his pain, he was met only by the voice of a dead tormentor who refused to let himself, or the one who had killed him, find rest.
"No."
Sail through an empty night
It's only you and I who understand
There is no plan
A hard crack and the last guard toppled over as Raditz touched back down, wiping a trickle of blood from the side of his mouth with a satisfied smirk. It hadn`t been hard to break in, most of the guards were missing by now, either out in the streets or dead, or in hiding or having left. It didn`t matter though. Quietly as ever, and with a proud bow, Raditz lead the way into the pod hangar, waving his arms inside and pointing the way toward any one of the hundreds of vacant pods in sight.
"Take your pick," he ordered happily. Celipa was unenthused, running inside without a word as Brolli and Kakarot stirred awake and shared screams with each other, though Brolli was by far louder. Raditz wasn`t far behind either, trailing Celipa by a bit since the few guards they`d encountered hadn`t been an easy victory for the boy, especially when he was having to do it without her help.
Seconds went by as Celipa found a pair of space pods that she found to her liking. Both were new, and both were models that featured things like built-in medical systems. She wasn`t sure if it`d work for Brolli given the baby boy couldn`t do a thing manually, and he was on the verge of death, clinging to life with all the tenacity of a true warrior, but still only clinging.
With a yelp, Raditz toppled over behind her, tripping on his own feet on a fluke. Celipa barely seemed to pay him mind. Instead, she gently, maternally set the two infants into either pod, pausing to run a soothing hand down Brolli`s cheek. For a time, it silenced him, and with heavy, sad eyes, he regarded her.
"Don`t die on us Brolli. The universe needs a legend," she said with a mother`s voice, though she knew now that she would never live to have any children for herself. That fact alone though, more than any other, made her all the more willing to show the kind of mother she could have been under different circumstances.
Both of the pods were already set. Brolli`s was going to be headed for a world named Themyscira, out in the uncharted realms. Kakarot was headed for a world on the coordinates of FX-50. The natives called it Earth from what several scouts reported. "Celipa?" Raditz asked as she pushed the pod doors shut and then looked down for a few seconds.
"Hey... You okay?"
Without warning, she whipped around, grabbing Raditz by his collar and forcibly slinging him into another pod, randomly keying in the coordinates for a little known mining station in the Korel Sector, a day`s trip off of Bejita. After that, much to his own protests, she slammed the pod shut, pausing only briefly to speak in the same way a mother would to her child.
"Just live," she said, tears in her eyes. Raditz paused in his attempts to get out, as he surely could have annihilated the pod in an instant. Instead, he watched Celipa dash madly for the exit and smack the mandatory launch button for any pods with actual occupants. In seconds, both Kakarot and Brolli, as well as Raditz, were all shut out of sight, then promptly shot up towards space itself.
"Just live," she echoed in thought, running as fast as she could towards the entrance of the entire facility.
Get closer to the thrill
Only time will kill
What's in your eyes
Is so alive
"Good," Toma finally managed to say, wiping the blood off of his face and standing straight in the chaos, watching the three ivory fireballs launching up out of the nearby complex. He had a quirky feeling as to who was in each, but didn`t have the time to act on it as Celipa made it outside, wearing something of a mix between a smile and a frown as she viewed his carelessness.
It cost him dearly a second later.
"TOMA!!!"
Adrenaline keeps me in the game
Still wearing his jovial expression, Toma slowly began to fall over, blood pouring out of a blaster wound in his chest. A wound that ran clear, allowing Celipa to see behind Toma through it, though she refrained from doing so. He never even hit the ground though, finding himself instead cradled in the arms of a woman who now realized, all too late, of course, that she had loved him. She always had and she always would.
"Toma..."
"Did you get them off-world?" Toma asked with some of the last of his breath, the life draining out of him rapidly. She only mutely nodded. "Good," he wheezed out.
Willpower alone, and devotion with it, compelled him to force the words out though. They were dry, under a breath that hadn`t existed, but he said them anyway.
Adrenaline you don't even feel the pain
"I love you."
Wilder than your wildest dreams
And with that, To Toma died.
When you're going to extremes
"I love you too," Celipa whispered with a soft voice, regretfully allowing the large Saiyan`s body to sag down to the concrete of the ground, laying her forehead onto his own. That, of course, was her own mistake, as the same blaster which had killed Toma soon found it`s mark on her back, punching through armor and blasting a small crater beneath both of the two. With only a small, dying smile, Celipa collapsed onto Toma`s body and then, just as he had, died in a matter of seconds.
It takes adrenaline
Bardock groaned to himself. He had felt them die. Felt everything about them come to an end. They were gone but the pain refused to leave him, becoming louder. "Please..."
A pause.
"Not again," he pleaded, gritting his teeth and screaming as another vision began.
Run through the speed of sound
Everything slows you down
The vision ended as Bardock came to, leering out to the right of the singular viewport of the small craft in time to spot a Saucer-class starship, though this was one he instantly recognized. The markings, the fact that it was completely spotless and the mixture of gold and sartin alloys were all key giveaways as to the ship`s identity. It was the Ice Jewel, Lord Frieza`s own personal transport, even though Bardock knew that it had probably been modified with enough shields and internal reinforcement fields that it could probably pass off more as an unarmed battleship of some kind.
"It`s starting," Bardock muttered, leaning back again and closing his eyes, only to feel time come to a dead stop for a split second.
Kakarot`s space pod darted by, and for the first time in nearly two days, Bardock let out an emotionally and physically exhausted smile to himself. How he knew was anyone`s guess, but he knew all the same and that was what mattered.
And all color that surrounds you
Are bleeding to the walls
"Behold Bardock," the voice of his dead tormentor began to repeat.
"A savior has been born," Bardock finished raggedly. "A savior who can protect the good and the innocent from the likes of Frieza..."
A pause. The voice seemed to wait in expectation.
All the things you really need
Just wait to find the speed
"And me."
Then you will achieve
Escape velocity
"Precisely," the voice stated, almost seeming to lose the fire with which it had tortured him since that fateful chop to the back of the neck. Silence finally fell, both in the pod and in Bardock`s thoughts.
It didn`t last long though, an explosion sounded, distant and almost quiet, but easily heard and felt in the silence of the space pod as it slowed down on automatic. The explosion had come from Frieza`s own space ship, the result was a spray of Saiyan bodies flying out. They had been the elite guard, warriors who registered at close to 15,000 each. No where near the 170,000 of the King himself, and utterly futile against the insane levels of Frieza. They had been the elite guard, warriors who had few peers and even fewer fears.
They had been the elite guard.
Now they were lifeless debris, floating towards burn-up on re-entry into Bejita`s atmosphere. Just a few of the already millions-high level of casualties, which was still rising on the planet below. The same planet that Bardock was on a crash course for.
Too much is not enough
With a loud suction, the remaining pressure pad atop one of the dozens of launch complexes that dotted the burning cityscape of the capital of the adopted homeworld of the Saiyan people. Two guards were in sight, as was a low level warrior, who ran through the exit onto the landing pad only to be gunned down from a series of desperation-level blaster shots.
The pod opened, Bardock lumbered out, staring blearily at the two guards. Both were drinking friends of he and the rest of his crew, they were probably just trying to survive. He wasn`t going to stop them, and they weren`t even noticing him until he let out a hacking cough and staggered by without a word. "Bardock?!" One of the two asked. He only gave a backhanded wave with a gauntleted hand covered in his own dried blood, staggering on into the darkening confines of the facility.
Nobody gave it up
Minutes passed in absent resolution. Bardock continued on, sweat pouring down, caked up blood flaking away at times and brawls happening throughout the staircase while he trudged onward to the top. No one noticed him, everyone was too busy fighting for their own lives to care about someone who looked as if he was about to die anyway. For what it was worth, he paid them no mind either, thinking instead.
"A savior... Against monsters like Frieza and me... A savior... My son... A savior..."
Another flash. Bardock lurched forward again and vomited up a combination of half-digested food, bile and blood, both dry and fresh. The effects of the visions were enough to bring anyone to their knees, especially someone who had been having them since he`d gotten them. It was a wonder Bardock`s brain hadn`t shut down by now.
I'm not the kind
Quietly though, with resolve he had been lacking, Bardock straightened up. The planet was eerily familiar. Strangely devoid of wild life. Oddly shaped trees were everywhere in the distance, the skies a beautifully mundane shade of green with the clouds only faintly contrasting. The water was crystal, clear and blue as drinking water that had never needed a single bit of filtration to be healthy. Fish could be seen, and then he recognized vaguely bird-like creatures hovering in the skies.
But there was something too wrong about this pristine place. Something familiar as well.
"FRIEZA! COME OUT! I KNOW YOU`RE HERE SOMEWHERE, STOP HIDING FROM ME!!!"
An echo. Was he alone? He bent forward in exhaustion.
"Bardock..."
Apparently not.
"... Who is it?!" Bardock demanded. The voice wasn`t Frieza`s, that much was obvious. "Who`s there?! Show yourself!"
Silence.
"Come out! I know you`re here!" Bardock yelled, only to feel a jolt. Slowly, ever so slowly, the Saiyan warrior bent back upright, knowingly looking towards his right, expectant of a tyrant, a demon from Hell come to take his soul where it belonged for all the atrocities he had commited in his lifetime. What he found instead -
"You know who I am, don`t you, Bardock?"
- shocked him more than any demon ever could.
A man, maybe in his mid-twenties at most, back turned. His same build, but skin that showed signs of never having been exposed to the kind of environments that had given Bardock himself a near-permanent tan. Unscarred from the looks of things, but standing with the strength and the purpose of a warrior born from day one to protect, to make sure that good and the innocent, those who could not defend themselves, were.
Slowly though, Bardock reached up, almost smiling, almost breaking into a fit of sobbing hysterics as he put out a hand, however futile the gesture was for the distance between the two was too great for Bardock to ever grasp, even if it was only a few simple steps that seperated them. Two words came out of his mouth, twice in a row, the only two that he could fathom enough to put together in an actual sentence.
"... My son... My son..."
"It`s not too late, Father," the other stated, slowly craning his head back to set a forceful gaze onto Bardock, one that almost made the older Saiyan break into pieces from it`s intensity alone. It was his son alright. "It`s not too late to be different."
"Different?"
"Different from him," Kakarot replied, though his lips did not move. In an instant, his image seemed to blur and distort, clarifying back up to reveal Frieza with a menacing laugh. Bardock only barely had time to scream before the vision ended.
Again, he stumbled forward onto his hands and knees, near the top of the stairs. In that instant, he knew what his son had meant. It was too late to avoid the punishment that he knew was coming, but it wasn`t too late to be different.
It was too late to avoid his final judgement, but it wasn`t too late to find redemption.
With a warrior`s - no, a hero`s determination, Bardock forced himself back up to his feet alone, dazedly standing his ground on a stairway straight up to Hell, and dazedly standing there with a mirthless smile. The last steps were the easiest, maybe his legs were numb, maybe his resolve was too great for the pain to even reach him, but whatever the reason, the end result was that he was standing atop one of the few remaining buildings. Fires blazed, chaos reigned and a black dot swayed before the sun.
It was time.
"Totepo... Panboukin..."
A thoughtful pause. A quick breath.
"Celipa... Toma..."
Emotions, sorrow and hatred, but still an unconditional camaraderie-based love, the same as in any blood family.
"... Kakarot..."
To lay down and die
"This is for you!"
Without another word, an aura of bluish fire lit up from the ground around his boots to an arc several feet above his head, burning bright in the dull afternoon lighting, a sharp contrast to the crimson and orange flames littering the city. His aura blazing though, Bardock just had a few things left to do, and all of them were linked to taking flight and heading up for low orbit.
Adrenaline
Keeps me in the game
The skies were a blur, Bardock barely paid attention to them anyway. He had tunnel vision, seeing only the masses, endless as they were, of Frieza`s men coming right for him from the Ice Jewel. He could have cared less for them all, but they were moving into his way, and that meant that he had no choice but to care for them, at least care about getting them out of the way.
Wilder than your wildest dreams
When you're going to extremes
"Stop him!" One of the countless soldiers ordered. The fact that they were all apparently among Frieza`s elites wasn`t a fact that Bardock ignored either. If they had been normal soldiers, they`d`ve been issued blasters, or even provided with actual helmets to give them oxygen. Elites, like Bardock, were strong enough to hold oxygen through an unseeable aura, secondary to the one currently burning like a fireball around him.
"Time to end this," Bardock thought, plunging headlong into the mass of alien warriors like a Saiyan demon from Hell itself.
It takes adrenaline
"FRIEZA!!!" Bardock screamed, flying along at full speed even with close to twenty of the dictator`s supposed elites grappled onto him, trying to slow him down or stop him all together.
A backhand here, an elbow there, a close ranged energy blast and most of them were off, about half of them were dead but he didn`t care much, not even enough to crack a smile. Determination personified the moment as more elites lined up in front of him. A kick through the first`s head, blasts for half of those after him. The other half either got out of the way or found themselves smashed to a bloody series of pulps as Bardock continued his furious rampage, glaring at the Ice Jewel from afar.
Adrenaline
Screaming out your name
"I`M COMING FOR YOU, FRIEZA!!!"
Adrenaline
You don't even feel the pain
Wilder than your wildest dreams
When you're going to extremes
And then the action seemed to hit a high point as another number of elites pooled up in front of him. Bardock only growled under his breath and went into a series of vicious punches and kicks, never slowing for even a second in his relentless assault. Against one low class Saiyan, for whom injury had provided a decisive boost in power and loss had provided a motive like none other, Frieza`s elite could only fall to the wayside, smashed like tin cans in a tornado.
It takes adrenaline
And then it all came to a sudden, silent halt. Silence punctuated and broken by the sound of the top hatch on the Ice Jewel sliding open. Apparently, the explosion that had left one of it`s numerous viewports blown out hadn`t damaged much else, and it hadn`t hurt the one person that Bardock had rampaged through hundreds of others to get to.
An expression of utter contempt was what greeted the lone Saiyan as Frieza himself rode out from within his ship, sitting in his hoverchair like he almost always did. The Aisu`s tail hung limply over the side of the black half-pod, and his horns hung in an especially angry seeming way.
Adrenaline
"You had something to say, Saiyan. Do it," Frieza ordered sternly, watching with disgust as his so-called 'elites' trembled in terrified submission, while one Saiyan held firm, defiantly hovering before him as no others had and no others would for more than twenty years. Bardock siezed the oppertunity though, raggedly straightening up and speaking out loudly enough that everyone could hear him.
"On behalf of my crew and my people, we quit! For too long, we`ve been your arms and legs, no more! You can fight your own battles from now on, you lazy little albino bastard!" Bardock shouted angrily, slowly raising his hand while Frieza raised his finger, a lone dot of orange held above it. "And oh yeah, one other thing..."
With a defiant laugh, Bardock drew back and gathered what power remained in him. Every last ounce of it, even power that wasn`t his to begin with. All of it was pulled together, gathering until it was visible as a basketball sized sphere of bluish-white fire around his hand. "This is from my crew, to you for all the people we killed in your name!" Bardock exclaimed, throwing the attack with all of his might.
Frieza only laughed. In an instant, the small orange dot had grown before the eyes of Bardock and everyone else there, until it was almost the size of a small moon, and it kept growing after that until it absorbed Bardock`s attack at halfway like nothing, stopping right then and there. Still laughing, much to Bardock`s dismay, Frieza pointed his index finger forward, right at the planet below.
"Here, have a gift from me as well!" He shouted, loudly enough that it seemed to freeze the elites in horror. The Death Ball continued forward, but Bardock only smirked as one last vision struck him...
You don't even feel the pain
Kakarot, grown tall and proud, standing directly across from Frieza on the same planet as most of the visions, his hair gold, his body battered and bruised, but his eyes showing the same determination that had seen his father to the end.
You don't even feel the pain
Still smiling, even as the fires of death consumed him and his armor and clothing, his tail and his skin all burned away one by one, Bardock`s voice echoed through deep space, hitting Frieza like a ghost. The dictator`s own thoughts were going to be plagued by the name he heard, and they would be plagued for a long time.
There is nothing in between
"KAKAROT!!!"
You don't even feel the pain
In a flash, Breh Bardock, like the rest of the Saiyans on planet Vegeta, died. Unlike them though, Bardock died laughing.
The doctor was silent.
The boy already knew what that meant. Hit squads. He was probably the only Saiyan aside from Nappa and Vegeta who wasn`t going to be killed.
He was benevolent in all ways as far as his appearance went, a kindly smile dotting his expression. Aged eyes, white eyebrows and a matching mustache, thick and setting a look to him that made him appear just as nice as he actually was.
"Now what is a little boy like you doing all the way out here?" He asked with a smile, heaving up the strangely heavy feeling baby. He couldn`t have been older than a week and yet he was at a stage of development that took most babies months on end to hit.
There was also his tail, which curled visibly around Gohan`s wrist a few moments later.
"Strange little fellow, aren`t ya?" He asked at the boy`s puzzled expression before breaking into a mild chuckle. "Don`t worry my boy, I`m a bit of a strange one, myself," he leaned in with a smile. "Believe it or not."
The child cocked his head to the side and then promptly kicked Gohan right in the side of the head. It was a kick that would`ve leveled most men less than half his age, yet the old master merely laughed it off before tossing the child into the air and catching him. "Bit cranky, aren`t ya?" He asked, still smiling. The baby let out a cackle in response and tried to kick him again, but Gohan was too quick this time, tilting his head out of the way. "Can`t be doin` that now, don`t wanna knock your new grandpa out, do ya?" He asked, making up his mind to adopt the child right then and there.
"But what do I call you..."
It was a nice day out.
"Hmm..."
So sunny, just enough clouds to be interesting.
"Maybe... No, no... That wouldn`t work. Perhaps..."
So warm, and pleasant, such a wonderful look to the sky...
"I know!" A pause. "I`ll name you Goku!" The elder stated proudly. The newly dubbed Goku let out a cackle in response, infectious enough that Gohan himself soon joined in.
The women were peaceful, they`d known conflict before but they didn`t bother with it now. Essentially, the universe had a way of balancing things out. Namek was the polar opposite of Themyscira, composed of asexual people who were more male, while the Themyscirans, by now asexual themselves(they reproduced in essentially the same way as Nameks), were more female.
Vasha didn`t think of these things though, uneasily sliding down the edge of the crater, which was now beginning to fill with water since the tide was coming in. The lone ball of metal and glass at it`s center was virtually unscathed though, and after she had gotten close enough, she took dangerous note of how the pod door slipped open with a gasp of air.
The sight inside was not a pretty one. Nor were the words that kept echoing out.
"Guuan phor, Brolli, draevel ulu elgg... Guuan phor, Brolli, draevel ulu elgg..." It kept repeating. Vasha didn`t like it one bit, but the visual of the brutalized baby lying inside was something she disliked even more.
Reaching within, she was careful to bring out what felt like a corpse. He was cold, blood had caked up around a wound in his side, and it had soaked around where he`d been laying. No food meant that even though he`d somehow clung to life, he was disastrously thin. Even if the boy had been alive when he`d landed, she doubted he would`ve stayed that way long enough for her to have reached him when she did.
And then she felt a small, vibrant twitch. Death seemed to throw the boy back from the brink and his small, shrunken chest expanded in slow, ragged breaths. Timidly, Vasha watched him while climbing out of the crater, leaving the pod behind.
"What to call you?" She asked, though the words were actually in her native language, spoken with a tone that matched the pity in her voice. And then she remembered the placement and emphasis on the word 'Brolli' from the pod, speaking it quietly a few moments later to see how he might respond.
"Brolli?"
A kick. Random, but powerful. If it had hit her, it probably would`ve left more than a tiny bruise, even in his horrendously weakened state.
"Brolli, it is then. Let`s get you to a doctor..."
The Sh33p