Chapter Nine: The Titans Spar
One-two. One-two. Left-right. Left-right.
Green fists ripped through the air, charging forward with such speed that even the winged-shod Hermes would not have been able to see them. Yet this was not fast enough. The Prince predicted his opponent's every move. The Namek had fallen into such a dilapidated rhythm, Vegeta had to suppress a yawn.
One-two-three. Left-left-right.
Piccolo changed the combination and increased the pace. Still he was unable to lay a finger on the bored Prince.
One-two-three. Left-right-left.
"Faster, fool!" Vegeta taunted with an infuriating smirk as Piccolo tore his fist toward the Saiyajin's face. Vegeta bent his head aside. With one hand, he grappled Piccolo's forearm before the Namek had a chance to pull it back to safety. Piccolo tugged his arm toward his body, but he could not free himself from Vegeta's steel grip.
"What did I tell you about warm-ups?" The Prince sneered. Twirling around, he threw Piccolo down into the rubble like a discus. Dust shot up in a mushroom cloud over the labyrinth of wreckage. The Prince squinted but could not see his prey through the haze. Lowering his head for a better look, he waited in the air like a greedy wolf.
"Come on, Namek!" he shouted down to Piccolo, "Come back up here and fight me!"
Nothing.
Vegeta scowled and crossed his arms. Had he his tail, he would have wagged it like a vexed cat. His brows were so steep in his frown that they formed the same acute angles a cat's ears make while hissing.
A growl slipped through his lips. He could foresee what Piccolo wanted him to do. He refused to budge, though.
"The Prince lowers himself for no one," he thought but then dismissed the words immediately. He was too eager. He wanted the fight to continue, and Piccolo was too patient to be enticed into the next move. Vegeta would have to go down there into the dust.
He heaved an angry sigh, "Imbecile!"
A rowdy breeze bustled through Vegeta's hospital smock, puffing it out like a blowfish. Examining the scene below one last time, the Prince grunted angrily and descended into the dust, feet first. Wind from the dust cloud swept into his already inflated smock so that it began to flap upwards, revealing two leaden thighs.
Alighting onto a cement block, Vegeta kept his arms crossed and mechanically probed his surroundings. The dust had yet to subside, but the Prince was not of the mind to wait any longer. Reaching inside himself, he summoned forth a small flicker of his ki to waft away the haze. As he did this, his smock flailed more than ever; Vegeta, though, paid no heed to it, having forgotten entirely what he was wearing.
Suddenly, he felt himself yanked from behind by the end of the smock. Turning around, his face met with a hard foot before he even realized it. To prevent further damage, Vegeta soared back into the sky with Piccolo trailing behind him.
"I saw that move clearly," Vegeta chided himself in his thoughts while he flew in search of a more amenable fighting environment, "I could easily have prevented it." He was caught by surprise. He had thought he could ignore trivial details like how his own garb could be used against him, but he was proven wrong. He had the evidence right on his cheek.
Or did he?
Vegeta gingerly pressed his fingers on his cheek. There was no sting or bruise. There was no evidence of the recent blow it had sustained at all. Vegeta plainly sensed how much ki Piccolo had concentrated into that kick; it was substantial. Yet it had done nothing to Vegeta.
The Prince smirked.
"Good," he thought while hurtling toward a level valley beyond the city, where his opponent could gain no cravenly advantage through terrain. He landed squarely, his feet spread evenly apart and his arms cocked at his side. Soon after, Piccolo alighted on the ground in a similar position.
The two Titans of power stood across from each other in a manner not unlike two dueling cowboys in the Wild West. As a breeze whistled by, a swirl of dust rolled between them in the shape of a tumbleweed.
"No more tricks, Namek," Vegeta spat out.
"War is deception, is it not?"
"War? It is," Vegeta rejoined, showing no emotion and not moving an inch from his stance, "Spars? Not always. Let's spar, I say. The two of us."
"To what purpose?" Piccolo asked.
"To test our strengths. You were strong, nearly as strong as me, for a time, back before I defeated Freeza."
"Before you defeated Freeza?" Piccolo arched a brow curiously. He combed his memory and then realized how uninformed Vegeta really was.
The Prince thought that when he pinned Freeza beneath the Genki-Dama, the tyrant had died. The Prince thought he had defeated Freeza, that Goku still lived, that neither of the two Saiyajins had yet achieved the level of Super Saiyajin.
"Yes!" Vegeta barked boastfully, wanting to back up his words with gesticulation but knowing better, "Now that Freeza is out of the way, I think a good stretch with you will be enough to make me the Super Saiyajin. Then I can snuff out that Kakarrot and be on my way."
Piccolo did not know what Vegeta would do if the Prince believed Goku were dead as all the others did. Not wanting to figure out, the Namek decided to play along.
"Alright," he said curtly, "Enough speech. Let's begin."
"No more tricks. Just pure power."
"Just power."
"Then it's time to rid of any temptations, no?" Vegeta cautiously reached up his hands to the collar of his smock and ripped it from top to bottom. He rolled the cloth off his shoulders, chest and naval and tied it around his waist and between his legs.
The Prince returned to his fighting stance and waited impatiently. He was no longer burdened with a recklessly loose smock. Instead, he stood with his wide shoulders stretching out and erecting his toned chest into the air. He stood nearly bare, covered only by an improvised loincloth. All his muscles and scars were revealed to his enemy with pride.
The Namek said nothing and made no expressions. Grimly, he tossed his turban and cape aside.
Then he grumbled, "Round Two."
"On three," Vegeta announced, "One, two—Go!" As he spoke this last word, he felt inexplicably compelled to reach out his arms to the heavens. He bellowed out a roar, and his ki exploded out of his being, raising many of the rocks from the ground and pulverizing the rest into nothingness.
The force of this rising energy blasted Piccolo onto his back. The green man had to heave himself up with great persistence to return to his feet, as though he were wrestling with hurricane winds.
"So close! So close!" The Prince roared euphorically. His mystic and god-like smile crept onto his face and mixed with a touch of his frothy madness, making him look to be a lunatic.
"Yes!" Vegeta groaned gleefully as power poured out of his body, "Yes! I am the Legendary!"
Piccolo grimaced. He had to stop this. The Earth itself was trembling beneath the overwhelming power, and he could see the city behind him erupting into a panic.
"No, Vegeta!" he shouted, "You'll never be."
Vegeta threw his eyes at the Namek and immediately ripped forward, landing a hard punch on Piccolo's face. Piccolo was stunned out of reality for a moment, but swiftly regained consciousness. As his body continued to hurtle backward, he bent his back a little, leading him into a back flip.
Having landed, Piccolo spun around to fly toward Vegeta, but the Prince bound onto him out of nowhere. Vegeta threw his punches so rapidly and forcefully, Piccolo could only evade one or two of the combinations. He dared not deflect any of the throws, fearing it would do more harm than good.
Vegeta exhaled fiercely with each punch, with each kick, with each elbow to the face and each knee to the stomach. He got the damned Namek nearly every time. Vegeta's rapturous grin grew wider the more he quickened the pace, the more wildly he threw each punch, the more he felt bone against bone and the more he heard the cracking and the grunting of battle.
As yet another fist met yet another face, the Namek's blood splattered onto Vegeta's bared chest and rolled down until it mixed with the accumulating sweat. Quickly, Vegeta followed up with a whip of his foot, and Piccolo plummeted into the ground.
Panting, the Prince settled his feet onto the earth. His opponent lay down, exhausted, and did not try to get back up.
"Do you like it, Namek? Do you like my power?" asked Vegeta while jabbing a foot into a well-worn side of Piccolo's ribcage. Piccolo struggled not to wince and then turned his eyes toward Vegeta and smiled widely. This was a phenomenon, really, as the green man reserved smiles only for the weightiest of all times.
"It is nothing," he chuckled, "It's the dust beneath your feet. Nothing."
Vegeta scowled and kicked the Namek in the stomach. Piccolo coughed and rasped desperately, swallowing down all the air he could gather. His foot rested lightly atop the Namek's stomach.
Vegeta stooped over and hissed, "What do you mean nothing? It's more than you could ever imagine! It'll prove to be your death, worm! And you say nothing! Ha!"
"Your power is greater than mine," Piccolo conceded tiredly, "but it is nothing compared to…to Goku's when he became the Super Saiyajin and defeated Freeza."
This caught the Saiyajin off-guard, and Piccolo was able to leap onto his feet and with a hasty ki blast shove Vegeta away several yards. The Prince caught and threw the blast to the side. He glared at Piccolo hatefully, his eyes bloodshot with disbelief.
"Gohan saw the transformation with his own eyes!" Piccolo confessed, "There was a great flash of light, like the sun. The light lingered in Gohan's eyes and then receded into an aura encasing his father. Goku's hair had morphed into golden spikes one would see in a sculpure, and his eyes flickered green."
Golden light, golden hair, green eyes. Yes. Vegeta remembered hearing mention of such things in the legends, but he never told Kakarrot of this or the half-blood or anyone else for that matter. It had to be true. But no. No. It could not be.
"Liar!" He hollered as he dashed toward Piccolo. The green man only realized that Vegeta was charging toward him at the last moment. He careened to his side but not in time. Vegeta caught Piccolo's right shoulder and arm, and with the force of his charge ripped it clear out of the socket.
Piccolo tumbled onto his knees, shaking with pain, shaking without his shoulder and arm. The blood from the dismembered limb bathed Vegeta's naked chest and poured down onto his legs. In fury, Vegeta threw the limb upward and then annihilated it midair with a blinding blast.
"Liar," he grumbled under his breath, "liar, liar."
A/N: Thank you for reading! Please share your input!