Ch. 55: Frieza Force (2)

"Which way did he go?" Piccolo asked Bulma.

"That way. Towards another dragon ball. According to radar, it's about ten miles in that direction." Bulma declared, pointing.

"So... on top of all of that, they have dragon radar as well?" Krillin muttered, throwing his hat to the ground in anger, "How are we supposed to get the dragon balls away from someone like that!?"

"They might not have radar." Piccolo said.

"Right, there's a group of Namekians in that direction. They might be looking for them with their scouters." Gohan realized what Piccolo was getting at. Piccolo clenched his hands in anger. This person had probably wiped out a large number of his people, and he was helpless to stop him.

"Let's go, Hanna." Piccolo told me.

"I'm coming, too!" Gohan told him.

"We can't fight these guys. It's just going to be reconnaissance. There's no point in having us all go." Piccolo argued.

"I'm not letting you go by yourselves!" Gohan argued.

"Gohan's right. Bulma'll be perfectly safe here. We should all go, have each other's backs." Krillin agreed with Gohan.

"Tch... fine." Piccolo conceded, noting the look in Gohan's eyes, the boy wasn't going to back down on this.

"You can't just leave me here by myself!" Bulma complained.

"It's either that, or you come chase the bad guys down with us." I told her, "If things get bad, we might have to fly away. You can't do that, Bulma." I reminded. After a moments thought, Bulma reluctantly backed down.

"Someone needs to stay here and hold down the fort, anyways. Just don't do anything stupid!" She told us.

After Piccolo reminded us to keep our power levels pushed down as far as possible, we ran off following the energies that we could sense burning like terrifyingly evil fires.

...

"And here's the cappuccino machine. That's everything. You're ready to blast off now. Push the button and you'll be there in... When, Shay?" Dr. Brief finished giving Raditz and Goku their tour of the spaceship. He asked Shay, who was standing nearby, about the timetable.

"Just under six days." She told them.

"Incredible. Thank you both. Time to go to Namek!"

...

"Keep your power hidden. They'll notice it for sure if you don't, at this range." I reminded everyone as we came up to the Namekian village and hid on the same nearby cliff that Gohan and Krillin had hidden on in the anime. This time around, Dodoria's scouter didn't pick our power levels up at all.

"Those must be the Namekians!" Gohan whispered as Elder Moori was ushered out of his hut along with two children, who I recognized as Dende and his clear twin.

"They're going to kill them..." Piccolo whispered to himself as we watched. It was pretty obvious to us what Frieza's intention was. 

"Shh... We can't do anything if that monster down there kills us first." I muttered. Piccolo reluctantly nodded, silently agreeing with me. We watched as they marched all of the Namekians out of their homes.

Meanwhile, Krillin and Gohan were whispering about their uniforms between the two of them. Raditz didn't like mentioning his past as a member of the Frieza force, so they didn't know much about it. He'd never mentioned Frieza at all. They reasoned out between the two of them that these guys were the ones that the Saiyans sold the planets they conquered to, before Frieza introduced himself to the Namekians.

"Now... let's get right to it. We know that there were five others with you before. Save me time by telling us where they are." Frieza asked the Namekians, before adding something. "Sorry. I should have said please. Like this." He intimidated them by concentrating a small amount of energy on the tip of his fingers.

With nothing that he could do to stop them, Elder Moori clenched his fist and started speaking in Namekian.

"Speak the common tongue. I know you're fluent in it."

"Fine. The men are out. Working in the fields."

"Good. Now, where is the six star dragon ball?" Frieza cut right to the center issue. When Elder Moori tried to play dumb, he immediately told them the stories of what had happened to the last four Namekian Elders who he'd stolen the Dragon Balls from. The first one, he had tortured the entire village right in front of before he came clean, explaining all of the secrets of the dragon balls, including the fact that each village had a single ball that they were tasked to look after.

They could give these to anyone who passed their 'tests,' but Frieza was far too evil for them to even bother testing, so the next three elders had been simply killed off without any interrogations at all. he called it 'willingly giving them' to him.

"Our brothers would never willingly give a dragon ball to the likes of you." The Namekian refuted. As a result, Frieza ordered Zarbon to attack one of the Namekians. After that, a Namekian attempted to fight back, attacking one of the guards nearby, but Zarbon didn't care about his subordinates. He killed the elder who fought back without an ounce of hesitation.

Beside me, Piccolo and Gohan were grinding their teeth in anger.

"Gohan. Keep your power contained." Piccolo whispered evenly, struggling to do the same. Seeing Piccolo was just as angry as he was helped to calm Gohan down a bit.

"Understood, Piccolo." Gohan muttered through clenched teeth.

Elder Moori wasn't doing much better than Gohan at containing himself by this point. "What do you want with the Dragon Balls, anyway?" He asked. Frieza answered him. He phrased it as a simple wish, but he wanted eternal life.

"Just like Vegeta." Krillin muttered.

"They really are Vegeta's competition... but they're winning."

Hearing the wish that Frieza wanted made Moori even more resolute. There was no chance of this tyrant ever using his dragon balls to gain eternal life. He knew it in his heart that he'd never figure out that the balls only responded to Namekian, but he still couldn't let Frieza get a hold of his ball. Even if his entire village was wiped out as a direct result.