Goku's wide smile absolutely refused to stop.
He was actively coughing up bright blood. Several of his ribs were heavily cracked in multiple places from Raditz's last, devastating punch. His left arm was still hanging completely useless at his side. And yet, the massive, joyful smile was still right there. It was spread wide across a bruised face that was rapidly swelling around both eyes, and honestly had absolutely no business looking that incredibly pleased with itself.
Raditz stared at his younger brother in absolute, horrified disbelief.
Why is he still smiling? Raditz thought frantically.
The humiliating answer arrived suddenly from below. It came from a blind direction he hadn't even been watching, mostly because the rocky ground beneath them had been completely destroyed twelve violent exchanges ago, and he had simply stopped actively tracking the massive debris field.
Krillin burst straight out of the smoking rubble at terrifying speed.
He wasn't launching an attack.
He was grabbing.
Both of the short monk's hands locked like a steel vise directly around Raditz's furry brown tail.
The physical effect was immediate and completely total. It felt exactly like a massive, biological circuit breaker violently tripping. Every single combat system in Raditz's powerful Saiyan body actively registered the critical compromise simultaneously. His blazing ki instantly collapsed inward. His massive muscles completely lost their structural authority. The intense, ambient energy that had been effortlessly sustaining his high-speed flight simply stopped sustaining anything at all.
He dropped like a stone. Both of his armored arms fell limply to his sides with the graceless, dead weight of limbs that had suddenly forgotten exactly what they were designed for.
Krillin hit the rocky ground hard and held on for dear life.
Raditz hung suspended awkwardly from his own trapped tail. He desperately tried to produce some kind of violent physical response to the indignity, and found he physically couldn't even twitch a finger.
"What..." Raditz gasped, the pathetic sound coming out barely above a strained whisper. "What is..."
Krillin let out a massive, echoing shout of pure, unadulterated elation. Both of his dark eyes were heavily swollen half-shut, and he hadn't technically won a single physical exchange in the entire fight, but his two-handed grip on the tail was absolute, and he was absolutely not letting go for anything in the universe.
Goku was literally dancing in the air.
There was absolutely no other accurate word for it. The bruised man with the broken arm, the split lip, and the bloody face that had violently lost a prolonged argument with Raditz's armored fist was actively dancing. He was happily hopping from foot to foot in the red air high above the smoking crater. He radiated the pure, unrestrained joy of a martial artist who had just successfully solved a very difficult problem they had been desperately working on for a while.
Even Piccolo's stony expression had significantly shifted. The stern, freezing neutrality that had heavily anchored his green face ever since the early morning had slowly developed, somewhere in the last few frantic minutes, into something that could only be accurately described as a violently suppressed smile. It was absolutely not warm. But it was definitely present.
"What elite Saiyans?" Krillin called out triumphantly from the rubble below. "You're just a bunch of oversized idiots!"
"Damn you... pathetic Earthlings..." Raditz's weak voice had completely lost its arrogant structure entirely.
Jordan quietly pressed two fingers to his own temple and sighed.
He had completely known this exact moment was coming. Raditz's humiliating defeat via a simple tail-grab was as heavily documented as absolutely anything else in the entire Dragon Ball franchise. It was established canon. It was cosmically inevitable. It was a known, embarrassing outcome that the original timeline had eventually arrived at under very different, much more lethal circumstances, but had arrived at nonetheless.
However, Jordan reflected, actually knowing it was coming and standing there actively watching the humiliating spectacle unfold in real time were two slightly different, painful experiences.
He literally had more than four times their combined combat power, Jordan thought, slowly rubbing his forehead in exasperation. And they still easily got him with the exact same cheap playground trick that works on absolutely anyone who hasn't bothered to train it out of themselves. He truly earned every single bit of his pathetic reputation in the fandom.
If this had actually been a real, desperate fight to the death—if Raditz had immediately died the exact second he lost the physical ability to resist—the brutal result would have felt exactly the same as a cold execution. The terrifying, legendary strength of the Saiyan race hadn't been properly displayed at all today. The physical defeat was undeniably real, but the sheer, comical scale of it was deeply deflating to watch.
Jordan looked down at little Gohan. The boy was quietly watching his beaten father dance happily around a smoking crater with the careful, wide-eyed attention of a smart child who was not entirely sure what he was watching, but had firmly decided it was probably fine since his dad was smiling.
Jordan smoothly switched his face to a bright, cheerful expression with the easy grace of someone who had a lot of practice at rapid emotional transitions.
"Alright, that's enough!"
He raised his voice easily to reach the three assembled victors. "You have all officially experienced the terrifying power of the Saiyan race directly. What is your final tactical assessment?"
He looked pointedly at the happily celebrating Goku, the grudgingly satisfied Piccolo, and the highly triumphant Krillin, who was still tightly holding his furry prize in the dirt.
"Just a friendly reminder for all of you," Jordan said, keeping his tone perfectly pleasant. "Raditz's two much stronger companions have actually bothered to train their tails. The easy, glaring physical weakness you just successfully exploited will absolutely not be available to you when they land."
The joyful celebrations instantly ran completely out of momentum.
Piccolo made a sudden, choked sound that was, very briefly, somewhere in the rough neighborhood of a surprised laugh. Then, his green expression violently snapped back into cold neutrality, exactly as though the slip had never happened.
"So, please do not count on simply repeating today's cheap method next year." Jordan offered a highly patronizing, kind smile to the silent trio. They had all collectively absorbed the terrifying new information and were visibly, rapidly deflating in the red air. "It is always much more useful to know these things now, rather than discovering them the hard way later."
He slowly turned his dark gaze back to Raditz, who was still awkwardly suspended from Krillin's iron grip, and finally let the pleasant expression drop from his face entirely.
"And as for you."
Raditz's terrified eyes instantly found Jordan. He looked at the tall man with the intense wariness of someone who had very quickly learned to treat Jordan's direct attention exactly like a catastrophic weather event requiring immediate physical preparation.
"You have officially disgraced absolutely every single Saiyan warrior who has ever lived," Jordan said coldly. "Comprehensively. You literally possessed more than four times their combined combat power, and they still easily caught you with a basic tail grab."
Am I the actual Saiyan standing here, or are you? Raditz thought miserably.
"Stop complaining in your head and listen to me," Jordan commanded. "They clearly agreed not to kill you today if you managed to win the fight. You absolutely did not win. So, you need to quickly explain something to me. What exactly is your current, ongoing value to this situation?"
Raditz's arrogant composure, which was already under significant, crushing strain, finally buckled completely. "Wait! Wait just a moment!"
A full, bloody year of actively crossing the galaxy alongside Prince Vegeta, constantly operating at the very upper end of the ruthless Saiyan society's power hierarchy, had given Raditz a very specific, deeply ingrained relationship with the core concept of strength. You were either powerful, or you weren't. And if you weren't powerful, the ruthless people currently sitting above you in the hierarchy immediately made permanent decisions about your continued existence. He completely understood this brutal framework.
He was currently sitting at the absolute rock bottom of this particular new hierarchy, and the terrifying person sitting at the very top was looking down at him with mild, lethal expectation.
"I have incredibly valuable information!" Raditz blurted out. The desperate words came out significantly faster and higher-pitched than he had intended. "I know things about the wider universe! I know about Prince Vegeta's future plans! I know the inner workings of Frieza's Legion! You absolutely need me to—"
"I have already read your mind," Jordan interrupted, casually tapping his own temple once. "All of it. I know absolutely everything you know."
Raditz just stared at him in horror.
"The Mind Network tends to be incredibly thorough," Jordan confirmed with a cold smile.
"...Ah."
Raditz slowly processed this devastating fact. "This is..."
The heavy pause that immediately followed had the highly specific, deeply depressing quality of a desperate man who had just completely run out of leverage, and was quietly taking stock of the terrible view from that vulnerable position.
"Jordan."
Goku had floated over to them. His intact right hand was raised slightly in the universal, polite gesture of someone who desperately wants to add something important before a final, lethal decision is officially made. His bruised face currently looked exactly like it had violently lost a long debate with a brick wall, but his dark expression was highly serious in the specific way that meant something important to the people who actually knew him well.
Little Gohan finally saw the full, bloody extent of his father's physical condition from the safety of Jordan's arms. His small mouth went immediately unsteady. He pressed his lips tightly together with considerable, brave effort to keep from crying.
"Gohan."
Goku gently reached out and pinched his son's soft cheek with his good hand. The gesture was incredibly gentle. "Dad is completely alright. See?" He produced a massive, goofy grin specifically for the sole purpose of being reassuring to his son.
Gohan looked closely at the wide grin. He looked at the heavily swollen, bruised face surrounding it. He was visibly, entirely unconvinced by the display, but he was clearly willing to bravely accept the premise for now.
Goku turned his serious attention back to Jordan. "You confirmed that absolutely everything he told us earlier is real?"
"I did," Jordan nodded.
"Then..." Goku glanced down at Raditz. The defeated Saiyan was currently dangling awkwardly in the dirt, his famous pride somewhere down around his armored ankles. "He is still technically my older brother. Could we maybe... not kill him today? We could let him stay here and actively help train everyone for the invasion. He would definitely be incredibly useful for that."
The shocked eyes Raditz slowly turned toward his younger brother at that exact moment contained complex emotions he would absolutely never, in his entire life, be able to put into actual words. This was primarily because the necessary emotional vocabulary for them had simply never been developed in brutal Saiyan culture. What was completely clear, however, was that if the red dimension had been entirely empty of witnesses, he absolutely would have done something profoundly embarrassing, like cry.
Jordan quietly considered Goku's earnest request. He noted the terrible, hanging state of the man's broken arm. He slowly gathered his medical chakra.
"He is your brother," Jordan finally agreed. He firmly pressed his glowing palm directly to Goku's fractured limb. The soothing green light of the Mystical Palm Technique settled deep into the skin. "We will do things your way."
Goku immediately felt the freezing cold rush of pure life force rapidly moving through his broken bone. It was the highly specific, strange sensation of shattered pieces forcefully finding their proper places. Deep relief and rapid reconstruction happened in perfect sequence. He straightened his posture involuntarily and exhaled a long, shaky breath of relief.
"However, there are going to be strict conditions," Jordan continued, his voice hardening. "This particular guy definitely needs some heavy structural encouragement toward maintaining good behavior on Earth."
Jordan snapped his fingers.
A heavy collar seamlessly materialized directly around Raditz's thick neck. It appeared to be made of solid black iron. It was completely seamless in its construction, and it was fitted closely enough to the skin that there was absolutely no question of forceful removal. It looked exactly like something that had been extensively used before on someone who had desperately needed it.
Raditz's armored hand instantly flew up to grab it. It was the pure, ingrained reflex of a captive warrior encountering a physical restraint.
His massive ki instantly vanished.
It was not suppressed gradually over time. It was just gone. The massive, roaring energy that had been his entire personal identity ever since he was old enough to walk simply wasn't there anymore. What remained in its place was a physical body that suddenly felt much younger, incredibly lighter, and completely powerless. It was the highly specific, terrifyingly vulnerable way of a strong being who has never once experienced true powerlessness, and is violently experiencing it for the very first time.
"What... what is this thing?! My power... it's gone!"
"Your combat power is currently suppressed to the exact average level of Earth's normal warriors," Jordan explained calmly, completely releasing Goku's fully healed arm. "It will slowly unlock itself automatically, but only as their own physical strength improves. When they eventually surpass your original power level, the restraints will come off entirely."
He smoothly shifted Gohan to a much more comfortable position on his hip. He explained all of this with the pleasant, absolute finality of a strict manager casually announcing a new company policy, rather than negotiating one.
Raditz just stood there in the strange, geometric terrain of the Imaginary Space. He was completely surrounded by the 'weak' Earth warriors who had literally just defeated him by grabbing his tail. He was wearing a heavy collar that had completely removed his elite combat power. And he was slowly processing the horrifying information that the absolute conditions of his future release were directly tied to the physical improvement of the exact people he had spent the entire afternoon acting vastly superior to.
He slowly did the terrible math in his head.
Once they finally surpass my level... at which point I will finally recover my full strength... what exactly does recovering my strength accomplish for me then? They will already be physically stronger than me. They will absolutely continue being stronger than me. The absolute ceiling on this entire humiliating arrangement is that I eventually become the weakest person in a group of increasingly powerful people. And then the collar finally comes off... just so I can fully enjoy being the weakest person in the group.
He was currently completely unaware that the term "Earth warriors" in Jordan's specific framing strictly excluded Goku and Piccolo, whose unique alien and Namekian baselines placed them in a completely different, much higher growth category entirely.
He was also currently completely unaware of exactly what terrifying threats were coming in a year, and exactly what brutal training under actual, apocalyptic stakes tended to produce in Saiyan biology.
He would unfortunately figure both of those terrifying things out eventually.
For right now, he simply stood in the bloody red light of the Imaginary Space. His bruised chin slowly descended toward his armored chest. The proud, arrogant head that had aggressively crossed the entire galaxy as a highly respected Saiyan elite warrior finally found a brand new resting angle, somewhere considerably lower than it had ever been before.
High above him, the massive crimson sun asked absolutely no questions, and offered absolutely no comfort.
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