Captain Ginyu was an extremely wise and intelligent man. He possessed a cunning and tactical prowess few others could match. The reason for his genius? Primarily because he had experience. No one, not even the great Lord Frieza himself knew this about Ginyu but.. He was over a thousand years old.

Each and every time he had taken a new and more powerful body, he took their current age as well, all the while his mind remained sharp and retained all of his experience as a warrior…

Ginyu soon realized that eternal life was more of a curse than a blessing.. When you never really died, you had more time on your hands than you could ever imagine. More than you could possibly even know what to do with. Eventually, everything the man tried, no matter how fun or exciting it had seemed at first, grew boring.

Everything except for one, beautiful thing. One precious fixation that gave him purpose… He wanted to find the strongest. That may not come as a surprise given his nature but contrary to what one would believe he actually had no desire to be that person.. He simply wanted to serve them. To stand by their side as number two while they forced the universe to bow at their knees..

Having uncontested power was boring.. But to stand in the midst of strength absolute never failed to solicit an instinctual fear from within the captain. It was the only thing that gave him any true sense or feeling of being alive after an unbearably long millenia.

To that end the captain now found himself, to his endless joy, in the service of Frieza for his twentieth consecutive year.

Ginyu was one of only four living beings that had ever seen the tyrant's true form. He knew with a confidence that could not be reasoned with that Frieza was the strongest. There was no one stronger. With every year Frieza's power grew, and the abomination did literally nothing. He just floated around in his chair, casually killing and devouring everything in his path.. and Ginyu worshipped him for it.

Ginyu knew he could have tried to take the young lord's body, especially in the earlier days. But that was not his purpose.. His purpose was to serve the magnificent, godly being and see him reach his greatest heights.

He remembered the hypnotic voice. He recalled the sleek, slender, ivory body and the monster's angelic violet eyes.. The way they shined.. The captain shuddered.

Once more he was called upon to step up and fulfill his master's wishes, as only he could. He watched as the rest of the pathetic bumbling idiots in his Lord's empire failed miserably for months to locate and exterminate the decrepit saiyans.

How dare those tailed bastards even consider defying his master's desires? If the Lord wanted them dead they should all just die and that be the end of it. But of course they foolishly chose to remain a thorn in his master's side.

Captain Ginyu took it into his own hands and utilized his countless connections and unparalleled expertise to locate the heretics. It only took about a month for the captain to catch wind of a promising lead. Somewhere far off on the edge of the North Galaxy, where word travels slowest, Captain Ginyu's connections learned of a planet that was dying abnormally fast.

To most they probably would have just brushed it off. Such a phenomenon wasn't entirely unheard of but.. Captain Ginyu's finely honed instincts gnawed at his gut. Upon further investigation he found that it was actually the second time such a thing had occurred within a relatively close proximity of the area. For one lush and healthy planet to just die inexplicably was improbable. Twice was impossible.

"Gotcha." The captain smirked..

Three months later and the Ginyu force arrived at the location that the captain predicted the saiyans would more or less appear. In between the South galaxy and the North galaxy was an intergalactic outpost. It wasn't too far away from where the planets were destroyed and he figured if the saiyans needed to stop anywhere they would do so here.

These outposts were abnormally large planets. They typically measured at least 100 times larger than Earth. By and large they acted as neutral planets throughout the four galaxies where people could trade and rest. Most of the outposts were not ruled by any particular group or party except for the ones that had been conquered by the Arcrosioan Empire of course.

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It was estimated that Frieza currently controlled about a third of the known universe.

Ginyu looked out at the rapidly approaching planet. It was primarily light green and the abdurd size of the thing caused it to take up almost the entirety of the visibility from his ship's window. He turned on his scouter and spoke into a uniquely private line. This was a privilege that only the captain was granted of course. "Get ready team.. You will have your targets momentarily."

He did a quick scan of the power levels of everyone on the ship. He smiled at his team's while frowning at the two mercenaries that had tagged along..

Recoome 60k

Burter&Jeice 40k

Guildo 15k

Dodoria 22k

Zarbon 30k

Ginyu 125k

"Given their last known power levels this should be easy but.. There's a wildcard among them." The captain hummed. Somewhere on the planet was a power level of 150,000. All the rest were rather low, none totalling above 50,000. But that one in particular was even higher than his and none of the saiyans, not even Vegeta should have been anywhere near that strong. He tapped his chin.

"No matter. I'll deal with that one personally while I gather information for the team." He pictured all the ways Frieza would reward him upon his return following his assured victory and he began to laugh maniacally.

Intergalactic outpost #7,380,420

North Galaxy outer edge.

"Jesus those two really can't suppress their power any lower? Do those idiots want to get caught?" Raditz scoffed. He shook his head as he walked beside his brother, Kakarot. "Especially that childish buffoon, Turles! I refuse to travel with him. He'll get us all killed!" He sighed, slapping his forehead.

Beside him Kakarot just laughed in response, as if the man didn't have a care in the world. Of course to anyone else that may have seemed true but Raditz wasn't just anybody. In the last year and nine months since he had met his brother he spent nearly every day at least talking to the man at some point in time or another.

It turned out the two of them were remarkably similar in a lot of ways, even if that wasn't apparent on the surface.

Add all of this together and throw in a little 'big brother intuition' and Raditz could say with confidence he knew his brother well enough to know something was bothering him.

He also knew that the best way to help his brother was to just be there if he needed him and show the younger saiyan that he trusted him, as Kakarot had chosen to trust him so many months ago..

So for now he played along. "Hmph, glad you think it's funny, imbecile. I suppose you think you've found the key to defeating Frieza already, knowing you." Raditz said, stopping and crossing arms. He narrowed his brows at his younger brother. "Tell me, Kakarot… Was I that undisciplined when we first met?" He asked seriously.

"Ahahahaaa, are you kidding! You were much worse than that, Raditz!" Goku laughed enthusiastically. His brother gave him a dead panned expression and he smirked in response before shrugging. "But you're right about one thing.." Kakarot said seriously, looking off into the distance. ".. Turles's utter lack of control over his ridiculous power is like a beacon to people like us, even without the technology Frieza's forces use." He said with concern.

Raditz looked down at his little brother with a raised brow. "You mean people who can sense energy?" In response Kakarot looked up to him and nodded. "Exactly. I suspect maybe Vegeta could lower his power quite a bit more if he really tried but.. I'm sure feeling Turles's superiority every second of every day is really starting to make him regret learning Ki control. I'm surprised he's holding back even this much.." He answered truthfully.

The Earth raised saiyan sighed. "I just have a really bad feeling about this. Come on, we should go find Gohan and the others. I told them not to go too far but.. He and his mother get excited about new things." The saiyan sweat dropped.

With that the two redoubled their pace and began making their way towards the heart of the outposts, where all the people would be.

With Turles somewhere on the edge of the city

"Hmmm.. I've already covered half of the outer ring of the city.. This is where all the scummiest dwell, where all of the most illegal commodities are found." He said looking to his left and then his right. In between the desolate buildings and urine soaked alley ways was any number of shady looking figures. Each of them trying to score in one way or another..

"So why the hell can't I find a fucking drink!?" Turles stomped his foot in frustration and let out a Ki burst that shook the slums of the city to their foundations, cracking countless windows and sinking many weakened foundations. Everyone scrambled back in fear and shock.

He huffed and puffed, looking left and right like a cornered animal. "My, my, my.." Turles heard from somewhere behind him. His blood ran cold. "Impossible…" He muttered, turning around slowly. Floating in the air before him, with his arms crossed was none other than Captain Ginyu. ".. If it isn't the twerp, Turles! All grown up are we?" The captain asked with a chuckle. 'Look at him..' Ginyu thought to himself. 'Clearly the after effects from the tree of might are taking their toll on his mentality. Just how many of the cursed fruit did you eat you damn fool?..'

Turles growled. "What do you want, Ginyu? And how did you find me? Before you think to try anything, be warned I know all about your body stealing technique and it won't work on me." The saiyan warmed ominously.

Ginyu for his part smirked. "Naturally. They all say that… Do you want to know how I got this body?.." He asked while tapping one of his horns.

Turles narrowed his eyes at the man, clearly not in the mood to drag things out. Captain Ginyu tisked. "Very well. A story for another time perhaps." He said with a roll of his eyes. "As for what I want, saiyan.. I want Vegeta.. You know he was always Frieza's favorite toy.." He said coolly.

Turles had to resist the urge to shudder. Truth be told he had been planning on taking down Vegeta himself soon anyways.. while making his move he suspected the others may become a problem for him. If Ginyu and his ragtag band of mercenaries could somehow do his dirty work for him, why not let them? Either way one of the groups would die and that would be less work for him.

'Making deals with the Devil…' He thought with an internal sigh. Turles looked Ginyu in his beady eyes. "I'm listening…"

End of chapter 27