#krilllin

What If… Raditz Chose Earth?

Raditz arrives on Earth expecting to find a planet ready for conquest.

Instead, he finds a world already broken.

Piccolo is dead. Kami is gone. The Dragon Balls no longer exist.

Garlic Jr rules what’s left of Earth through the Black Water Mist — and the Z Fighters are barely surviving.

Raditz is forced into an impossible position: fight alongside the very people he was sent to conquer… or die alone on a doomed world.

This is a full-length Dragon Ball What If story (28k+ words), exploring survival, betrayal, redemption, and what it actually means to be strong.

👉 Read it now on Patreon

Title: Carry On

Chapter #: 1

Summary: An imaginative twist on a classic tale, Carry On is set in an alternate universe where Goku is never sent to Earth and the Saiyan homeworld is never destroyed by Freeza. It follows the adventures of Rosamoona, daughter of Goku and Music, daughter of Raditz as they are accidentally sent to Earth when Vegeta falls into an abrupt war. With the mystical dragon balls their only way back to the burning planet, will the Son girls be able to carry on? 

Notes: This is my first work on AO3/Tumblr, but feel free to check out my other stories on Wattpad under the name Shinedownlover560. The characters in this story are the same ones I use in my Wattpad stories (just wanted to make this clear for the few who may recognize Rosamoona's name. Tis I, just on a different platform).

This was originally a one-shot based on the prompt by the lovely @bubblybunnie , and I've since turned it into a story using most of - if not all - of our DBZ OC's. Enjoy!

Explosions shook the ground as we ran. I could hear the bombs as they fell from the sky. It was a high pitched sound that mixed together with the screaming of the terrified citizens and the cries of the injured.

We ran for what seemed like forever. I didn’t understand why we couldn’t just fly... It would have been so much quicker, but Daddy said it wasn’t safe enough. We ran and we ran and we ran and we ran... We ran until two one-person pods came into view.

Uncle Raditz said something, but his words were lost to me as another bomb struck the ground, not far from where we were at. Debris flew in every direction, causing me to stumble and cover my face. I felt cuts open up on my arms as stones struck them. When it had cleared enough for us to see, there was only one pod left in working condition.

Daddy swore, running forward to inspect the damage. Uncle Raditz grabbed my hand, pulling me along with Music. When we reached Daddy, he shook his head.

“It’s no use, it’s busted. They’ll have to go together.” Uncle Raditz swallowed hard and nodded, his jaw set hard.

“But you said you were coming with us!” Music protested, her eyes widening. “You can’t stay! You’ll get hurt!”

“Music there’s no choice,” Uncle says, looking his daughter in the eye. “You and Rosamoona have to leave now.”

I looked between my uncle and father. A part of me knew that the two space pods were never for the four of us, even if I didn’t want to admit it. They were only ever for Music and me. Tears welled up in my eyes and I rushed towards my father, hugging him the best I could. He knelt down, wrapping me in his large arms.

“It’ll be okay,” he whispered. “I promise.”

“Kakarott, they need to leave now,” Uncle Raditz says softly. Daddy nods, letting me go and standing up.

In a matter of moments, my cousin and I are crushed together in a pod that was only supposed to hold one person. However, given that we were kids, it wasn’t impossible for us to share the space.

“Listen to me; whatever happens you have to carry on,” Uncle Raditz says as Daddy messes with the controls. “You have to stay strong. You two are Saiyans! Remember that! The blood of Vegeta will always run through your veins.” He leaned in, kissing us both on the head. He backed up and stood with Daddy as the door to the pod slowly closed.

“We’ll get you when it’s safe!” Daddy called out. “When this is all over, you’ll come home!” The door closed before either could say any more. The pod rumbled, slowly at first, then more and more violently. Ash and dust blew around outside, obscuring our view of our fathers. After a few seconds, it cleared enough to let us see that the area they had occupied was empty.

“Papa!” Music exclaimed, leaning forward. She fumbled around, trying to find the button to open the door, but neither of us knew how to operate the pod. She mashed random buttons, causing a picture to come up on the screen below the window. A picture of a different planet than the one that had just been there.

The pod rumbled again, causing us both to cry out. Suddenly, it shot off the ground, ascending quickly. The higher it got, the more and more it shook. I was convinced that we were going to break apart at any minute, killing us both as we fell back down the surface of Vegeta in fiery balls. But after a few agonizingly slow minutes, the space pod broke free of the atmosphere and entered space.

As we floated above the planet, Music and I had a clearer view of what was going on. Enemy space ships took turns landing on our homeworld. Even from up here, we could see the burst of light as a bomb was dropped.

“We have to go back!” Music says, starting to hit buttons again. “We have to help!”

“Mus, stop!” I smacked her hands to keep her from hitting any more buttons. “That’s not helping!”

“We can’t just leave them there!” My cousin protests. “We have to-” Music was cut off as the pod jerked violently, shooting away from Vegeta and it’s attackers.

“No! Stop! Go back, go back!” Music once again hit more random buttons. The picture on the computer kept changing, showing a different planet each time.

I grabbed her hands, holding them away from the controls. “Stop! That’s not helping!”

“We can’t leave them!” Tears were starting to slide down her face. “We can’t leave them...”

I sat back as my own tears streaked down my cheeks. “We can’t... We’ll die if we do...”

“You’re just a coward!” Music ripped her hands free from mine but didn’t move to touch the controls. Instead, she curled up in a ball and started crying.

No, that’s okay, Anon, I don’t mind doing the legwork for you.  Really.

From the translation of  “The World’s Best Round-Table Discussion” as presented on kanzenshuu.com:

“You’re right, he is the strongest among the Earthlings. But in spite of that, he tends to end up in a bad way, so I thought, ‘once in a while, I have to let him be happy,’ and had him get married. (laughs)”

See, I knew you were shitting me, Anon.  You kept harping on the word “reward” like it proved something, and that’s not what Akira Toriyama said. 

His point, as I see it, wasn’t that Krillin deserved 18, or that he had earned her through some sort of trial.  His point was that Krillin had been humbled repeatedly throughout the series, and there needed to be some sort of reversal of fortune to balance things out. 

If Krillin is constantly defeated and humiliated, the audience becomes desensitized to his misfortunes, and they lose sympathy for him.  It’s the same way no one feels sorry for Tom when Jerry hits him with a golf club.  We’ve seen Tom get run over by a car and get blown to smithereens.  He’s a joke character, and we’re not supposed to feel sorry for him.  We’re supposed to laugh at him. 

But Krillin’s a sidekick.  Sure, he serves as comic relief, but he’s still important.  Remember, Krillin’s death was what triggered Goku’s Super Saiyan transformation.  If Frieza had killed Oolong everyone would have just laughed because no one feels any deep emotional connection to him. 

The reason Krillin resonates with the audience that way is because his comic relief bits and mismatched battles are carefully balanced with human drama.  Goku repeatedly compliments his progress, and the other Z-fighters often defer to his expertise.  He gets along well with the other characters, so even when he can’t help, he’s still seen as an asset, if only for moral support. 

His marriage to 18 serves three purposes.  First, it pays off Krillin’s craving for romance.  He got into martial arts to get girls, and this is one way to end that story.  Second, it gives him something to do during Goku’s seven-year absence.  When Goku returns, he finds that a lot has changed while he was gone, and Krillin’s family is one of the more poignant indicators that time has passed.  Third, the “happiness” bestowed upon Krillin is used to enhance the effect of his next humiliation.   Krillin’s married, but that means he has more to lose when Dabura turns him to stone.  It means he’s even more worried when he has to fight Buu all by himself.  It means he has even more chances to look like a dork because now his wife can boss him around on top of his usual bad luck.