PART THIRTEEN: DISCLOSURE! HIDDEN CHARACTERS AND FORMS!

Chapter 64

Translated by Ledgic

The ring was rebuilt. The next fight could now be announced. The advertiser Varga read the names of the two fighters, fighting out of their respective universes. The Varga activated his microphone and made the call:

"New fight, Baddack of universe 3 against Raditz of universe 13!"

In space 3, Raichi was unquestionably stunned. Baddack, here in his universe?

"What?" He said, turning towards the entrance to the inner apartments.

Tapion also turned around:

"Ah, so that's your name sir?" He asked the man, who for the majority of the tournament, stood hiding in the shadows.

"No." He simply answered.

Next to the unknown, someone walked by. The first looked at him, but the second looked straight ahead. He left without carrying a glance to the other combatants of his universe, stopped in the medium and looked towards the ring.

The Baddack from universe 3 was very different from that of the universe 10. He wore armour which resembled tremendously the latest models of those of Freeza's army, with one slight difference, in that it had two small square shoulder pads, as though they had cut down, dead long yellow extensions of the classic Saiyan armour. Here and there, it was cracked, testifying numerous hard battles Baddack had led. Under the armour, he carried a simple black T-shirt, as well as black trousers. He had white boots that contrasted with all the black he wore. On his right wrist, there had been a wide bracelet of identical fabric. an everyday reminder of his child, Son Goku. Baddack had bandaged his left forearm. It was a mark from an injury, or style, or symbol of something? Only he knew. Around his head, there was a symbol: a Ribbon that came from his best friend who died years earlier... On the left cheek, the warrior had a long scar, another witness of his full life of fighting. His gaze was hard and intense, he was there for one reason, one goal, one which he kept it in mind, without getting distracted.

Raichi, very close to him, was terribly irate, flared by the sudden appearance of a Saiyan, and perhaps even the worst of them! Pointing his index finger at him, he shouted:

"You! What do you expect!? Revenge!? Let me laugh! I'll slaughter you and eliminate you!!"

In the Varga command center, where they could hear what was being said, every Varga in the room questioned:

"Why is he surprised? Didn't they come together?"

Another Varga, who had heard of this universe by another, who knew a friend to his uncle, who was part of the expedition bringing the universe 3, replied:

"Yes and no. We found Baddack first and he asked us to keep his presence a secret. So we hid him somewhere and didn't tell the other three."

"Ah good... And you didn't think that their inevitable meeting would cause problems?"

"Precisely! It's what makes it interesting!"

"Right... I only hope that they won't be a fight between them out of the ring... We have separate apartments for them, then?"

"Of course. Their corridor has four doors, each one gives access to a smaller apartment."

Back in the space of universe 3, Baddack decided to meet with his arch-nemesis:

"That is not going to happen, weak excuse for a Tsuful."

Turning to face Raichi, he continued:

"I saw your future... And I know who you'll lose to."

Raichi clenched his teeth, supporting a look as bad as Baddack's.

'My future? How absurd! I won't lose, not against you, nor against anyone else!'

Baddack flew out to the ring. Some spaces away, in space 13, Raditz had prepared. He was undoubtedly surprised to see Dr. Raichi in the presence of his father in this universe. Hours earlier, he had been seen across the universe 10, telling him about his predictions. It had made him good, he had to confess. And to think that he had the opportunity to do it again!

"I hope that you will fight seriously, even if it is your father."

"My father, is also yours, idiot!" retorted Raditz, looking at Kakarotto.

"Oh? Yeah, so what?"

Certainly, Kakarotto was laughing madly... But not him. He would show him that he was no longer the weak child he was at the time! Raditz flew up to, and finally set foot on the ring five or six feet away from his father.

"Hello, my son. as luck would have it, it seems." But this sentence from Baddack wasn't punctuated with any feeling, and it seemed clear that his son of another universe, was no one special to him.

"Hello, my father. It's a pleasure to see you again for a fight."

"In my universe, we used to call you weakling Raditz, and you died at the first opportunity."

'Tsk, he dares talk about this directly?' thought Raditz, already upset.

"You're the same as in my universe, a failed father! Proud to be born lower class and having reached the elite, still you had only disgust for your two sons! I was weak only because of you, scum!"

Bardock was not really surprised by these words... He let his son continue:

"I hate you, and today I can take my revenge!"

Raditz could boast. In his universe, like many others, the last Saiyan's, driven by his brother, had become thousands of times more powerful than what was considered as an elite. His father, who had pushed himself for his whole life to reach the average of the elite, was pathetic in comparison. He decided to take points as of reference that he was sure they understand: Freeza's army. Although reduced to nothing in most of the participants universe, he had understood that the latter was still present fifty years ago in most of them.

But as Raditz knew he was inferior to that of Freeza in final form, he avoided lying, and sought the men who were much weaker.

"My power is way better than Freeza's eite and Ginyu's squad. I can squash you with one finger!" He shouted before correcting himself. "But I am going to take time..."

"Oh yeah? Only that? Too bad..." replied a smiling Baddack.

Indeed, the power level of the Ginyu commando was insignificant to his own. Clenching his fists, he transformed... His hair became golden-yellow, a light aura surrounded him, and his eye colour became turquoise.

"Oh fuck..." said Raditz, disgusted. "That's so unfair."

Raditz was disappointed. He wanted to humiliate him as the little girl did to the other Baddack. He hadn't thought that this old man could be achieve that state, and what pushed him to it? He was too stupid to achieve the state of Super Saiyan, he was persuaded. Was this Baddack so much different from the rest?

"I was certainly a lousy father..." Baddack began recalling the past, the same time as his son...

The place resembled a schoolyard or a playground for children. Small Saiyan's dressed casually and aged between five and eight years old spent their energy. To do this, there was no game or construction, because these objects were always irreparably destroyed very quickly. In the end, the only thing that was resistant to the fist of a Saiyan, was another Saiyan. Therefore left to run after each other, and slugging it out, and for some, trying to learn how to fly alone, jumping as high as possible, hundreds of meters in height, was easy, and they avoided crashing brutally on the ground, which was even easier. Using their powerful instinctive traditions that have always governed the animal Kingdom, groups were also formed around a leader, and seldomly, around a scapegoat.

This was the case for this small group. Several Saiyans children were singing a wicked jingle to laugh at their comrade. They were four around their victim, who had originally long hair.

"My Dad is Baddack the strong, I'm weakling Raditz!" the children chanted to irritate their comrade.

"Shut up! I am not a weakling!" retorted a pissed Raditz, simultaneously clenching his fists and teeth.

"You're so weak, you can't be a Saiyan!" one of the kids shouted.

"Your mother must be from another planet!" added another before laughing.

"A low-life whose population was eradicated!" continued a third.

"My Mother is an Saiyan elite warrior!" said Raditz, who said the strict truth: his mother was at the top of the elite, the pride of the saiyans.

"I know! Your Father's not Baddack either. You must have been ound on a low-life planet."

"Your parents were both insects of something."

It was too much. He needed to silence these stupid children who made fun of him! He attacked the nearest:

"I'm not an insect!!" he cried, his fist raised.

He put at it all his aggressiveness, all his force. His adversary, however, dodged it easily, and a violent blow of elbow to the face caused Raditz to fall to the ground. He didn't stop there: He placed his knee on the middle of Raditz's back, grabbed his right arm then brought it towards him. Raditz howled in pain.

"Yeah, go for it!" shouted an another kid,encouraging him to bite the dust with weakling Raditz.

The one who held him down, not content with holding Raditz to the ground, taunted him with his tail, whipping his face with it. Raditz took advantage of this, catching then shaking the tail with his free hand, he bit down on it. The brat lost all of his strength as he screamed in pain.

“Let go! Let go, I said!” shouted down the kid while kicking Raditz’s face several times, while Raditz didn't want let go.

“I'llwn kill nwou!”

Raditz straightened, continued to bite his prey, and used his feet to hit the child who lost all means of counterattack. Others shouted encouragement, to Raditz. They were changing quickly camp. In fact, it’s what they wanted, it was a fight.

“I'llwn kill nwou!”

“Ow! It's I who'll kill you!”

“No killing while in recess, kids.” simply said an adult, completely disinterested while reading a small newspaper, sitting on a bench several metres away. The monitoring of these unbearable kids made the officials quite jaded. And then a bit of violence, it didn't hurt anybody.

This was the first victory of Raditz’s life. In addition, against Brasca, who was known for not being half bad of a Brawler! He continued to hold the tail for several more minutes before dropping it. When he let go, Brasca stood up again with some difficulty, and Raditz turned his back to him, leaving with dignity, while the behind him audience laughed.

He thought that it was finished, that he had taught him a lesson, however, Brasca was not going to accept such humiliation.

“I... Will kill you!” cried Brasca, quickly dashing toward Raditz.

He reacted rapidly, countering the attacks, parrying them and then making a counter-attacks. He had the advantage: he had taken an elbow, but only felt a small pain in the right arm and in the middle of the back. But the other was thoroughly beaten into the ground. He still managed, nevertheless, to deal critical blows to Raditz-the-weakling. However, the latter ended up winning the fight more fairly, knocking out his opponent. Proud of this, he ran to find his father to tell him the good news!

Baddack, the Father of Raditz, was preparing in the other room for a mission. He was dressed in his usual black and green combat armor when Raditz shouting:

“Hey Dad! Hey Dad, I've beaten Brasca! I beat him to a pulp!” he said, holding a clenched fist in front of him as a sign of triumph, and, despite his dismal state, with traces of blood clearly visible all over his body.

Bardock turned to Raditz and told him:

“That's good. I have to go.”

He made fun of him frantically. In addition, his son may have won but he had to see what state he was left in. Covered with injuries, and lacking a tooth! But it was no matter...

“Your brother was just born,” he said while while heading in his direction, or rather towards the exit. “I’ll check on him.”

“Oh cool. I’m coming.”

After five or six minutes of walking in silence, to the chagrin of Raditz, who sought the recognition of his father for the battle he has won several minutes ago, they came to the room where about a dozen babies were stored in small incubators. Some were prepared to be sent to planets, while others were to stay and live their childhood on the planet Vegeta, as was the case of Raditz.

Baddack headed for the incubator that was housing his newborn son. He looked at him for a moment. He was sleeping peacefully... for the moment. He supported a small button of his radar to her left eye to see his power.

“He’s pathetic”

He sighed slightly and turned around. Raditz quickly took his place to watch over his newly born brother.

“Kakarotto! Hey, Kaka! I'm Raditz!”

“Another weakling. It's another failure...” said Baddack gently.

But Raditz had heard him... Once again, he was placed in the camp of the weak... Oh well, that didn’t matter, he had not yet explained to him in detail his victory over Brasca! It was going to change the mind!

“Oh, you think so?” a woman’s voice was heard not far away.

Raditz turned around slighty. It was his mother, Hanasia. She was a rather pretty woman. Her constant battles had not disfigured her, for the time being in any case. She sported long hair... For sure, she was the mother of Raditz, there was no doubt about it.

“Scouters weren't here when we were born. Maybe you were a one unit just like him.” she said to Bardock, the father of her two children. “Numbers mean nothing.”

Those words were pleased to Raditz. Seen him like that, she seemed tender with children. But in fact, she was none the less severe ... But all the same, she understood that he and his brother were maybe not as weak as Baddack saw. Touching her scouter with one finger, she looked at several other children’s power levels around her:

“Look at these babies... three, five... Seven here. This one is 15! Do you really think he’ll become an elite? No way, sir. And this one is... Ten thousand?”

The baby was inside the incubator next to Kakarotto. Was her scouter on the fritz?

“Yeah. Very funny.” said Baddack thinking it to be a joke. A baby with ten thousand units, it was just impossible!

A strange alien interrupted:

“Sir Baddack? Miss Hanasia? Could you come this way, please?”

The two parents of Raditz and Kakarotto looked at eachother, then approached the alien with the pointed ears.

“We have instructions from Lord Freeza regarding your sons.” He told them. “Athough their power levels are very weak, he agrees to give them a chance and send them to a mission. Raditz will go on training, and Kakarotto will attack a weak planet.”

“I’m yar big bro.” said Raditz to the infant Kakarotto, to avoid hearing one more time that he was weak. “You'll have to do ev'rything I say!”

In his heart, he secretly hoped that his little brother never exceeds him.

“It's a small planet, many full moons per year, one-tenth of our gravity...” the alien continued to explain. “Average power level is 3.23. As you can see, he has every chance of...”

“Don't worry about the baby.” Hanasia cut in, smiling and clenching her fists in front of her as if she planned it in advance. “He’ll transform this planet into deserted rock.” What is the highest power level on it?

“We've seen some 150 to 200. But it's like 3 or 4 people. Normal elite is merely at 30 or 40.”

“It will be easy for him. It's not like he'll encounter the strongest masters on his first day on the planet.” said the mother of Kakarotto looking to Baddack.

“Whatever.” said the father of their two children, who seemed to be mainly focused on the exit.

“I mean, what are the odds of that?” She continued to herself.

Who would find Kakarotto some days later? Son Gohan, the strongest man on Earth (or not far)! If she only knew...

“Alright then. Raditz leaves the day after tomorrow. Kakarotto will leave in 10 days.”

“Perfect. I'll train my baby to kill. He will be ready.” said Hanasia, cracking her knuckles.

“Yeah, play with your child. My unit waits for me, so bye-bye.” said Baddack heading toward the exit, showing absolutely no interest in the future of his two weak sons.

Raditz left a few hours later... and without being able to have a longer chat with his father about his victory over Brasca, and more importantly, to prove that he wasn’t such a weakling. He left without saying goodbye, without so much as a glance. Nothing. In the universe 13 as in many others, Raditz never his parents again. But in universe 3 Baddack’s life changes its destiny...