Bubbles and brotherly bonding

 It’s been months of running, day and night, fuelled only by the apparently edible clouds, but Raditz finally sees the end of Snake way in the far distance, shading his eyes, he glances about for signs of life. Goku on the other hand, decides to ride the downwards slope of the end like a slide, whooping with excitement, panicking as he hits empty air at the end.

“Aw jeez!” The younger brother calls out, flailing back at the edge to catch himself, only for Raditz’s hand to close around his wrist, the elder brother having dived flat on his stomach, nearly teetering off the edge to catch Goku.

“Idiot! We could have both been sent below for this! Did you not even look before you leaped? You know neither of us has the strength left to fly at this rate.” The elder brother derides him.

Goku just smiles, “Thanks for saving me Radish.” The elder brother sighs and starts hauling his sibling up, dragging them both backwards along on the spikes lining the side of the pathway, sprawling backwards, exhausted, as Goku climbs up, stretching and looking about. “Sooooo... Kami did say that King Kai was at the end, right?” He asks, scanning the horizon.

Panting for breath, Raditz shakes his head. “The Namekian said you would know if I caught up to you. I now thoroughly regret the faith he put in you.... And equally so the faith I put in a slug.”

Goku frowns at that, confusion knitting his brow, “Slug? I thought Kami was a god and Piccolo was a demon... I mean, he’s green... and he lays eggs and-“ The younger brother squeaks with excitement, “Is he a-a- a YOSHI?”

Raditz starts to rub his temples, “I don’t know what that is... all I know, is that he’s a Namekian. Now can you keep your mouth shut for a while? I’m trying to figure out what the hell we’re supposed to do.” Goku nods, helping himself to more cloud. “Kami said to follow you and you said he said the end of Snake Way... so where the hell is..?” Raditz peers off the side, but sees only cloud below, before looking upwards. “Well, it appears I’ve caught your stupid brother. King Kai’s above us.” He points to a small green orb above. “That planetoid up there. There’s a house on it. I say we rest up, then fly up there in a few-”

Goku crouches, before jumping, faster than Raditz can process, sailing upwards to be caught in the planets gravity. “Where the hell is he keeping all that energy?” The older brother asks himself, pushing himself to his feet. “Okay Raditz, you can do this. If Gok- Kakarot can make it, then you can. HuuuP!” He launches himself skywards, channelling as much energy as he has left under him for a burst of speed, before he feels the planet’s gravity take him, far stronger than he could possibly have expected, with nothing left to catch himself with, the unexpected change slamming him into the planet surface harder than he expected, driving the air out of his lungs.

“YARRR!” A disembodies voice calls out,  “ROIGHT IN ME DUBLOOONS!”

“Huh. Wonder who that is?” Goku says, looking about, “Is that King Kai, or...? Oooh look over ther Radish, that must be him!”

Raditz picks himself up, tired to the bone, spitting out dirt and grass and looks to where Goku’s running, towards a small monkey. “Oh great  King Kai, we beseech you for training, so that we can save our planet-

“Your planet!” Raditz cuts in.

“From two evil Saiyans coming to destroy it.” Goku finishes. Raditz shrugs, he wouldn’t call Vegeta EVIL per se, more a self centred upstart than anything else. And a bit of a dick. No wait, he was totally willing to cut contact with Raditz until he was literally dead.

“Vegeta will go to HFIL by my hand if I can help it.” Raditz mutters, as Goku starts trying to imitate the monkey, bouncing about on all fours. “Goku-Kakarot, stop! You’re demeaning our race by acting this way.”

“Who the hell’re you two and why’re you yelling at my monkey?” Another voice calls out, a small blue man exiting the house, the monkey starts to chitter to him, but the blue man ignores him, black coat swishing as he walks. “Shut up Bubbles! I’m talking to the visitors.”

“YARRRRR ONE OF THEM STRUCK ME A BLOW IN ME WEE DANGLERS!” That same voice calls out from when Raditz landed.

“SHUT UP BOJACK!” The blue man calls out, kicking the planet surface. “Now if you two hadn’t figure it out yet, I’m King Kai. You want my training? Catch the monkey first.” He points at Bubbles who scurries off towards the all too close horizon, disappearing from sight.

“You want me to catch your PET?” Raditz demands, stepping towards the alleged Kai, “Why the HFIL should we listen to you, you look to fat to even have run up your own drive way.” He shouts, pointing back down to Snake Way.

Raditz blinks, and suddenly he’s flying away from the small planetoid, pain exploding in his gut. He slams back into the hard surface of Snake way, feeling a few of his ribs crack under the blow. Raditz squeaks in pain, coughing up blood. “Still don’t believe me, jackass?” The Kai calls out, “Now get back up here and catch the monkey.”

The elder brother raises a hand and tries to gather ki around it, intending to scorch the planet from existence, fury clouding his mind, but his energy is spent. The hand drops back down, and Raditz lets his head drop back, feeling like his body is about shut down. He can see hands creeping up from the edge of Snake Way, feel them wrap around his ankles, starting to tug him off the end.

“No ya don’t.” Goku cheerfully calls out, a few ki blasts scattering the ghostly hands, his boots clatter as he hits the walkway again, landing next to his brother. “Come on Radish! If we don’t work together, how else are we going to catch Mr Bubbles?”

“Raditz.” The older brother moans in pain, “Now shut up and get me up there.”

Goku stoops and lifts his brother, leaping them both back to King Kai’s planet, swivelling to land on his feet this time. It took thirty hours for Raditz to get back on his feet, but afterwards, he was actually feeling significantly stronger, unable to actually measure his power, as his scouter didn’t make the journey to the afterlife with him.

Raditz finally picks himself up, having slept off his injuries, his ribs having mostly resettled themselves in place, “Right.” He barks, “Goku, have you caught that monkey yet?”

“Yay, you remembered my name!” His brother cheers, before his distraction causes him to run face first into the wall of King Kai’s house, his skull smashing through the stone and into the room beyond. “Hi King Kai!”

“GET OUT OF MY BATHROOM!” The Kai screams, while Raditz fumes over using his brothers Earthling name.

“Right, then time for a true Saiyan to show you how it’s done, /Kakarot/!” He dashes at Bubbles, hand grabbing towards the simian’s tail, “Got you!” He yanks upwards, smirking at his brother, “See how easy that was?” He asks, shaking his prize, a small fire of pride in his stomach. Then he feels soil sprinkle against his boots. Without opening his eyes, his face drops. “I’m holding a flower aren’t I?” He asks, as Goku finally pulls himself free.

Even with the boost in strength, and the two brothers working as a (sometimes reluctant) team, it still took them four days straight of running Bubbles to exhaustion to catch him, before Raditz finally holds him high over head, the monkey ooking in submission, before Goku sweeps him up, laughing and hugging the animal to his chest. “Good work Raditz!”

Raditz simply rolls his eyes, and demands King Kai come show them their next lesson. He ignores the urge to smile that his brother finally got his name correct.

And ohhhhh boy, was Raditz was not happy when he found out the next lesson was to catch a bug with a hammer that weighed more than a moon. It involved a lot of impotent tree punching, and loud "YAARRR"s.