Chapter Text
It happens because of a poorly-worded wish. One second normal, then—bam!—a simple "please re-alive everyone who got killed in the latest attack on Earth" results in an ape-man breaking down the Son family front door.
("Monkey-man," Trunks corrects when Goten tells him later. "'Cause he's got a tail."
“Ohhh," Goten says, nodding, then asks, “Trunks?”
“Uh-huh?”
“I know we’re part Saiyan, but are we monkeys too? Or apes? We don’t have tails.”
Trunks crosses his arms and thinks about it for a while before giving up. “Hey, you wanna go play? I’ll race you to the park.”
Thoroughly distracted, Goten says yes and only gets a little mad when Trunks gives himself a head start.)
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense—this guy's been dead a long time. Maybe Shenron was just in a mood. That's what Daddy says, anyway. Gohan fills Goten in on who Uncle Raditz is afterwards, but in the moment he just knows that there's a bad guy interrupting dinner. Mommy hates stuff like this. Daddy gets torn between wanting to fight and wanting to eat. Goten thinks about trying to sneak an extra helping of noodles, but he's pretty distracted by the intruder. He doesn’t know what Gohan would’ve done—he’s out on a date with Videl.
Anyway, the door-breaker is huge and scary and has a lot of "bad guy" energy. The cracked armor on his torso has a hole the size of Daddy's face in it, but the bare chest underneath is unmarked. Huh. His ugly face is made even uglier by the angry expression twisting it. And that is way too much hair. His tail and his scent (unwashed full-blooded Saiyans smell bad, like a storage room full of dead people) tell Goten what he is, but he's not a Super Saiyan 3, so it's weird that his hair is that full and that long. Maybe he'd turned into a Super Saiyan 3 and didn't turn back right.
"If that's who I think it is, Goku," Mommy mutters, "you keep him away from our son."
Daddy cocks his head in her direction to show that he heard, but Goten notices he doesn't agree.
To the intruder, Mommy yells, "You could've knocked, you brute."
"Oh, I like her," he rasps. "If you're going to keep playing house with lesser beings, they should at least have some spunk."
"Say that again." Mommy looks ready to attack him with the nearest object, which, unfortunately for Goten, is his bowl.
"It's okay, Chi-Chi." Daddy's face is hard to read as he stands up and addresses the Saiyan. "I'm surprised you could find me without your scouter."
The bad guy grins, then, showing his big, sharp fangs, big like Daddy's and Trunks' dad's and Piccolo's and Dende's and—there are a lot of aliens with fangs. Goten, Gohan, and Trunks' fangs are less obvious, which is good in Goten's opinion, because Mommy already thinks he's a monster as it is.
(When they're trading several sets of sandwich halves, Trunks explains, "My dad says they're called incisors. Mom says they're called 'canines,' too, but Dad says he 'won't let the proud Saiyan race be compared to Earth mongrels' and blah blah, you know, that stuff he always says."
Goten hums around a mouthful of PB&J and privately thinks fangs still sound the coolest.)
"You weren't that hard to find, little brother," the bad guy growls, folding his arms across his massive chest. "I just sniffed out the smell of complete and utter betrayal and followed that."
Daddy has a brother? And it’s this guy? Goten glances between them, startled, and can kinda see the resemblance if he squints really hard. If he isn't lying—never a sure thing with bad guys—that would make him his uncle, right? That's weird. He spent a long time not having a daddy but he had always known he had one. The same can't be said about having an uncle, much less a mean one.
"Goku, whatever you're about to do, do it outside," Mommy says in a weary voice, starting to gather up the dishes, "before I take care of it myself."
The intruder snorts and curls his lip. "You let your woman fight your battles now, Kakarot?"
"Every once in a while," Daddy says lightly, then stands up, stretches, and walks past him. "And it's less that she's my woman and more that I'm her man, you know?"
It's a tight squeeze past the bad guy because of how huge he is, but Goten's daddy brushes by him without stopping.
"Don't forget to fix the door afterwards," Mommy calls after him.
"Yes, honey."
The Saiyan doesn't move for a second, looking out into the darkness after Daddy, then back in at where Mommy is clearing the table, and finally at Goten. He narrows his eyes and cocks his head. Goten sinks down in his seat, shy, and wishes he could disappear altogether when the bad guy's nostrils flare. Does he think he smells bad? He'd washed up after playing outside before dinner and everything, so he shouldn't.
"He had another one?" He murmurs, sniffing the air some more.
"Come on, Raditz," Daddy calls. "There's more room to fight out here."
Raditz? What a funny name for a scary guy.
"If you think I'm above wrecking this hovel, you have another thing coming." Still, he turns and walks out after him.
Mommy explicitly forbids Goten from going, too, so of course he sneaks out the first chance he gets. They walk some distance from the house, with anger coming off of Raditz in waves. Goten is a little frightened for his daddy right up until he reaches out to feel Raditz's energy. Then he realizes that he is about as strong when he trained with his mom when he was a little kid. Well, littler kid. It's almost weird how weak he is. Maybe those gigantic muscles are just for looks.
("For the ass-thetic," Trunks says. “Like a bodybuilder.”
That doesn't sound like how you’re supposed to say that word, but Goten doesn't know enough about it to disagree.)
Finally, when they're out in the fields, Daddy turns around. Goten hangs back in the trees.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't send you right back to where you came from," Daddy says, voice hard.
"Just try," Uncle Raditz snaps back, because apparently he doesn't know that Goten's daddy could blast him to bits. "You don't have your green friend to help you this time."
"I don't need any help. That said..." Then he calls Goten's name.
Guilty at being caught, Goten creeps out from the trees. Raditz glances over his shoulder at him. Goten freezes. He looks like he could and would eat him in two bites, low power or not.
"It's all right, son," Daddy soothes.
Goten scampers the remaining distance to him and hides behind his leg.
Daddy chuckles and pats his head. "There's nothing to be scared of. In fact, you're gonna fight him."
"What?" Raditz snarls. "Don't insult me, Kakarot. Your other whelp got a lucky shot in, that's all. You think that'll happen again?"
Daddy lowers his voice to whisper to Goten, "Don't rough him up too bad. And no going Super Saiyan. It's only fair; he's not gonna do that."
Confused but excited at the prospect of a fight, Goten nods. If Daddy thinks that he can do it, then he can do it.
Raditz's tail lashes through the air, bristling like a cat's. "You want me to kill your spare kid? Don't think I won't."
"You can try." Daddy nudges Goten forward, then pulls him back long enough to say, "Oh, and, uh, don't mention this to your mom, okay? Our secret."
And then, though he tries to follow his daddy's instructions, Goten beats Raditz up pretty bad. It's not his fault! He really, really tries not to. But Raditz is... not great at fighting. He acts tough, but when it comes down to it—
("Yeah, that sounds about right," Trunks says after winning one of their play fights—no powers, just wrestling on the floor, because sometimes it's more fun that way. "Dad only ever mentioned him, like, once, and it was to call him a weakling."
Wriggling out from under him, Goten protests, "But your dad says that everyone's a weakling."
"Well, yeah, 'cause it's true.")
Being so huge and heavy means Raditz is a lot slower. He might as well be moving through syrup for how well he keeps up with Goten. Not that speed would have helped him much. Even if his blows or blasts connected, Goten gets the sense they'd just be a little annoying, like a bug bite. When they take to the air, things are a little more fun, but mostly he thinks Raditz is treating him with kid gloves. The energy he blasts at him is powerful enough to blow big chunks in the field, but Goten doesn't have trouble dodging, deflecting, or flat-out blocking those same attacks.
"It's okay, you can stop taking it easy on me," Goten encourages him, but for some reason that only makes Raditz angrier and he starts saying a lot of bad words.
He lets him blast and hit him a couple of times in an attempt to help him feel better, but that doesn't have the desired effect, either. There's a vein bulging in his head and he's snorting like a bull. He actually gets a hold of him after Goten gets careless. One second he seemed to be floating in open, empty air, the next there was a huge hand clamped around his leg. He drags him down and holds him upside down in front of his face, giving Goten a view of his really big forehead upside down.
"Wow, you caught me." Goten smiles at him.
Raditz shows him his teeth in what is decidedly not a smile, then looks down at Daddy. "Kakarot, I'm through playing with your brat."
"You sure?" Daddy calls, hands on his hips.
"Very."
"Really?"
"Yes!" Raditz winds up his arm like he's about to throw Goten at him.
"All right, Goten," Daddy says, "let him have it."
"'Kay!" Goten pulls himself free and does just that.
He figures that if he stops holding back, his opponent will, too. That's what usually happens when he's fighting with Trunks. They'll spend a while just testing each other out, playing, before they get serious. Only, that doesn't happen. Raditz takes every punch, kick, and blast like a giant floating sandbag, face contorted in shock. Goten tries to make a point of only hitting him where he's armored, but he's only wearing so much, and a stray energy blast or two is bound to wind up hitting his limbs or his exposed chest.
A dazed, ash-covered Raditz hits the ground face-first a short time later.
“Oops.” Goten bites his lip, feeling guilty.
Raditz lurches onto his hands and knees, trembling.
"It's not... possible... he's just a kid..." He flinches when Goten lands in front of him, then spits, "Stay the hell away from me, you little freak."
Goten cringes and shies away. That was mean. Daddy's hand is warm on his shoulder as he kneels beside him.
"A lot has changed since you were last on Earth," Daddy says to Raditz, "so you're going to need to learn to play nice. You've seen what my son can do to you, so you don't even want to imagine what'll happen with me. Got it?"
He flares his aura, just a little, and Raditz's eyes get huge.
“Get out of here before I get angry,” Daddy says, scary-soft.
Raditz runs away after that, disappearing into the woods like an oversized shadow.
Gohan says a lot of bad words after Goten tells him what happened since he couldn't tell Mommy and because Trunks only knew so much. He even says bad words he's never heard before but he can tell are probably bad words from the way he says them. Maybe he shouldn't have told him about it.
“And he just… let him go afterwards?” Gohan asks, rubbing his temples, looking madder than Goten's ever seen him.
“Uh-huh.”
"I'll kill him," he says, and Goten can't tell if he's talking about Daddy or Uncle Raditz.