A weightless comet crashed through a row of towering buildings, cutting them into two and sending them tumbling down like chopped down trees. Vegeta had opened his eyes and recovered from the shock of the overwhelming loss of his collision with Son Goku's powered up Kamehameha just in time to see his incoming landing but he couldn't find the strength to resist it. That resulted in the Saiyan prince feeling every bit of his crash landing.
"Damn you, Kakarot! Damn it all!" Vegeta yelled out as he laid flat on the ground, forced to look at the darkening skies of the planet of his people. People who continued to live in their safe bubble of slavery in misguidance.
It sickened Vegeta. Sickened him so much, in fact, that the proud Saiyan warrior rolled on his right side and struggled to get back up. Just as Son Goku appeared in the distance, flying over to him, Vegeta returned to his feet and turned to face his opponent again. He had little strength left, but the Saiyan prince promised himself that he'd die before letting a low-class fool like Kakarot make a fool of him. Exhausted and panting, hurt but proud still, Vegeta took a fighting stance.
"You're still itching to fight? What a crazy guy…" Goku muttered while clutching at his twitching and inflated muscles that struggled to recover from the strain he just put them through. This time, however, his voice lacked any hint of excitement as the Saiyan just turned his back on his opponent and powered down. "Whatever, I'm done."
"You're done!?" Vegeta said.
"Yeah. I wasn't the biggest fan of fighting you from the start. You didn't start this fight at full strength. You're still recovering from your wounds. This whole thing has been pointless the whole time." Goku dismissed the Saiyan prince with a flick of his hand. "If you still want to settle this, let's do it when both of us are at full strength."
"Are you insane? Take this seriously, Kakarot, or I'll kill you!" Vegeta shook his fist out in front of him as blood from his wounds poured down his bruised face.
"Go ahead. I will not fight." Goku replied as he began looking around for a way to return to his friends now that the party of Planet Vegeta's military accompanying him had scattered and this entire region became ravaged by their battle.
"Damn it!" Vegeta cursed, clenching his fists out in front of him. "You cocky bastard, damn you, Kakarot! It's just because you're going to be useful to me when I dispose of Frieza and liberate the Saiyan race, that's why I'm sparing your life, do you hear me!?"
"Sure, whatever…" Goku muttered in response. "When you become this Super Saiyan thing or whatever, let's fight again. All of your hyping up has made me kind of excited."
"Prince Vegeta!" voices reached the two battered Saiyans from the horizon. The duo turned to sense an entire array of various power levels reaching up to several thousands approaching them in an enormous cloud. Even if these soldiers posed a minor threat to the two Saiyans, even in their exhausted, battle-worn states, together they may have posed a threat at the moment.
"You're bothering me, begone!" Vegeta shook his fist at the gathering cloud of soldiers above him. "If you want to be useful, prepare a healing tank for me and Kakarot. This battle has pushed both of us to the edge and will power us up."
"You've killed entire platoons of Frieza Army soldiers, destroyed the Communications Tower of the Asparagus Region and many more vital Frieza Army military facilities. Lord Frieza has also issued an order for your elimination on sight. Out of loyalty to your father, we will not carry it out immediately, but you must come with us and face your father!" a tall and burly alien with fins protruding from both sides of his grey-skinned, square-shaped head declared.
"Frieza Army this, Frieza Army that… It pisses me off!" Vegeta sneered and turned his pummeled face away in disgust. "You're breathing Planet Vegeta's air right now. This is the Saiyan homeworld and you should know your place, low-ranking trash!"
"That kind of attitude won't help at all," Goku sighed and shook his head, realizing that Vegeta's hotheadedness will get them both in a battle they might not win. If they were to beat this many soldiers, even ones a decent deal weaker than them, Goku would need to use King Kai's Fist again and that was risky in of itself.
"You leave us no other choice, Prince Vegeta," a balding, overweight Saiyan declared. "Your father will be most disappointed because you've gone rogue. You were the pride and joy of his life."
"You dare talk about me in the past tense, you low-class filth?" Vegeta showed his teeth, taking off at the entire army. This was something that surprised Goku, but the worn-out Saiyan could do little but extend his hand and yell out to stop the Saiyan prince.
The army swarmed them all at once. Ki blasts started coming from every direction and the Saiyan which Vegeta targeted for execution shuffled into the confusing midst of battle. The Planet Vegeta military squad sent to subdue the Saiyan prince in response to his transgressions blitzed past the two wounded Saiyans, knocking them around and quickly retreating. They knew exactly how outmatched they were in a fair fight, so they did anything but let it resort to a fair fight. Letting the two Saiyans stay in long-range, pelting at them continuously with barrages of relentless Ki blasts as braver and stronger soldiers moved in, hit and ran.
"Scatter Energy Wave!" Krillin's voice reigned in from up above the hectic battlefield. An intense blast flanked the confused Planet Vegeta soldiers from the western side, but then took it up to a position above them before it split into a raining down barrage of separate Ki waves. The attacks enveloped the brought down almost half of the soldiers, just like that.
"Solar Fist!" Goku yelled out, reaching up with his hands over his face. Krillin saw his friend preparing to execute the technique and closed his eyes in time. This was something that wasn't true for Vegeta as he suffered the adverse, blinding effects of the Solar Fist alongside the many enemies. Goku worked alongside Krillin to dispatch of the soldiers, Saiyan and otherwise, one hit at a time while they struggled against their temporary blindness.
"Goku, I figured you could have used help. Sorry, I ran off from my unit. They shouldn't report anything for a while since I knocked them out, but we need to hurry!" Krillin flew up to Goku as he pat his friend on the shoulder.
"Thank you, Krillin," Goku winced in pain, looking pummeled as all hell. Both Dragon Team members present knew that Krillin's thoughts about hurrying this quest for Gine's recovery up would fail because of the state of both fighters.
"What's the meaning of this, Kakarot!?" Vegeta yelled out, finally finding the resolve and strength to move his hands away from his moist and irritated eyes. "You've brought the Earthling shrimp alongside you?"
"Is that…?" Krillin freaked out, pointing at the wounded Saiyan prince.
"Yeah… That's Vegeta. I guess he wanted to settle things with my father, but he ended up running into me because we look kinda alike." Goku scratched his head with a light chuckle. He realized how foolish this situation seemed to someone unfamiliar with how this situation developed.
"Heh, I guess you do look similar, especially with you putting on the Saiyan armor and all…" Krillin chuckled, scratching his cheek as he took a second to sense the Ki of both combatants and realized that Goku had a much larger amount of stamina left and could have protected them if Vegeta lashed out on them.
"Sorry but… I kinda ended up promising Vegeta I'd help him with something so. We won't be able to leave so soon." Goku said.
"Oh no, you won't!" Vegeta flew up to the pair, infuriated as he pulled Goku aside. "I won't be caught dead working alongside a bunch of Earthlings, you hear me, Kakarot!?"
"Huh? But they're all pretty strong. Krillin ended up pulling us out of trouble, didn't he? Plus, they all know the King Kai's Fist too so they can help us fight this Frieza guy if he truly is all that unbelievable…" Goku pointed out, looking confused why Vegeta was so opposed to the idea.
"Wh-What was that!?" Vegeta went pale. "They… All know that technique?" The Saiyan prince turned to Krillin and then snapped his head around, feeling up various unusually massive Ki signatures around the planet, realizing that all of them could have escalated multiple times on command.
"I see… You ended up using King Kai's Fist, huh?" Krillin rubbed the back of his bald head, looking sorry for Goku's current state. "Well, I guess it can't be helped against a guy like Vegeta…"
It was only then that what Goku had told him fully dawned on him, and the Earthling went crazy alongside the Saiyan prince.
"W-Wait, what!? You promised Vegeta that you'd fight that Frieza guy that Chayote's so scared of!?" Krillin exclaimed.
"Yeah, I mean… He's supposed to be really strong, so don't tell me you haven't been even a little curious. Plus, everyone's always talking like Frieza this, Frieza that, like's huge trouble or something. It's for the best that we knock him flat and make him stop giving everyone so much trouble." Goku explained his point of view to his best friend.
"Humph…" Vegeta crossed his arms and looked away. "Shows what an oaf you are, Kakarot. Such a pathetic train of thought. Even your Earthling friend here has more reason than you. Fine, your Earthling goons seem to be somewhat helpful. I'll let them be useful for now. If we kill Frieza, I might end up so satisfied that I'll spare all of your miserable lives. That's quite a deal, isn't it?"
"Aren't you just a prince of Saiyans?" Krillin pointed to Vegeta with a squint. "I mean, sure, knowing that the Saiyans won't cause Earth any further trouble is pretty sweet and all, but it would be a much better deal if it came from your father's lips."
"Tsk… Just a few seconds of working together and I already want to blow you up…" Vegeta scowled at Krillin, frightening the bald martial artist. "In any case, both I and Kakarot need a healing pod right now. You must help us free up a medical facility and watch over us while we recover. We'll be vulnerable while the pod heals us."
"Those pods… They're what you Saiyans use to recover your strength, right? I guess we're a bit short on Senzu right now, so that is our best option. Goku's one of our strongest fighters, so we'll need his help if we really do plan on taking Frieza on. Oh, man… Chayote's going to get furious… We should have taken Dr. Puri along. If Chayote goes berserk again, we won't be able to stop her again." Krillin scratched his head and tried thinking this whole thing through.
"Berserk?" Vegeta's one unswollen eye opened wide.
"Yeah, when Chayote gets furious and sees a full moon, instead of transforming into a Great Ape she takes this odd, powered-up state where she gains control over the Great Ape's power while remaining in her human state. She goes a little crazy though and has to keep fighting and using all that energy or it becomes hard for her to control herself…" Krillin explained.
"Could that be…?" Vegeta's face dipped down, looking absolutely crushed for a second. "No… That's impossible. That Chayote woman was a nobody. She can't possibly be the legendary Super Saiyan. Whatever that freak power-up is, it must be another one of those martial arts techniques…"
"Super Saiyan?" Krillin wondered.
"Don't even get him started on that…" Goku leaned in on Krillin's shoulder as he whispered to his friend.
"Right, let's just try to find you guys one of those healing pods," Krillin nodded.
"So, you're Bardock?" King Vegeta stared down at the subdued and cuffed prisoner presented before him and accompanied by a pair of his elite guard that had polearms put by Bardock's throat as they held the Saiyan rebel down and kneeling before their king. "You've caused me a fair amount of trouble."
"I have caused nowhere nearly enough, you bastard king." Bardock sneered at the king. Even now, with his enemy subdued, the man who looked almost identical to his son, apart from the fact that King Vegeta was much taller than his offspring and had rich facial hair, surrounded himself with his cohorts. A proud warrior like Bardock couldn't view this as anything else but cowardice.
"Hmm… I'm curious why you've chosen to rebel. To bring so much trouble on to yourself and your entire squad. You were once loyal soldiers. You did dirty work but someone had to do it and you were good at it. Don't tell me you low-class soldiers turned greedy and wanted more power." King Vegeta wondered. He had a solemn and almost bored tone to him. The king likely didn't see Bardock as anything special on his agenda and would have seen him executed immediately after the rebel's confession.
"Sure… I'll tell you…" Bardock smirked as power surged within his body and erupted from it in a crystal-clear aura that began to slowly turn reddish as it flung the elite soldiers surrounding him across the entire royal hall, bending and shattering their feeble weapons. "But I'll do it from a position of a warrior, not some kneeling trash. I'll tell you all what I think of you, scum, but only after you tell me where my wife is and what have you done with her."
"Your wife?" King Vegeta rose to his feet, though he seemed relatively calm about this sudden outburst of power from Bardock. It was something that the rebel found odd, given how even his elite soldiers cowered and tried moving away from becoming the object of Bardock's ire.
"That's right, your bratty kid seemed awfully proud of knowing who Gine was and kept proclaiming he'd hurt her! If something bad happened to her while I was regaining my strength on Earth, I swear…" Bardock clenched his fist and shattered the spherical handcuffs around his hands while pulling both his hands apart, shattering both the static field enveloping his hands and the energy bolt connecting the two static fields while overloading the circuitry of the handcuffs with power.
"Gine? Am I supposed to know who that is?" the confused king turned to his fearful elite soldiers.
"I… I have heard nothing about a woman like that, Sir," an elite soldier proclaimed. His voice shook in fear for his life. It seemed like King Vegeta was the only one in the room absolutely calm as if he felt no threat from the ever-rising battle power of Bardock. Though, perhaps, he just couldn't quite measure how high exactly it was reaching as he refused to turn on his scouter the whole time.
"Mock me, will you, you bastard!?" Bardock roared out, charging right at his king. The furious Saiyan rebel threw a vicious uppercut, sending King Vegeta flying all the way to the ceiling of the royal hall while he snapped right up to the king and spun him around before releasing him to slam back down into his throne so hard that the falling king smashed it to bits.
The elite soldiers all took off rushing at the rebellious Saiyan at once but Bardock let his rising power howl by letting out a battle cry and releasing his rising energy in an explosive wave that sent all the charging elite Saiyan soldiers aside and knocked them out at once as they slammed against various objects, walls, and pillars of the royal hall.
"Caught me by surprise there…" King Vegeta rose on his feet, shocking Bardock with that fact to where Bardock's booming aura canceled out in a blink.
"How can this be? Your battle power is around 10 000 and has stayed the same for years because of your complacency. A hit like that should have knocked out any obedient weakling." Bardock muttered to himself as King Vegeta wiped the slobber off of his facial hair and looked up at the rebellious Saiyan with a smirk. The king of all Saiyans turned on his scouter and looked up at Bardock, measuring up his strength.
"A battle power of 91 292? Incredible… I could have never imagined a low-class Saiyan warrior being capable of surpassing the power of the king by so much. Then again, who knows what King Vegeta's power would have been by now? Either way, Lord Frieza was right to be wary of you lot. You're dangerous with wild battle powers like that," King Vegeta mused to himself as he spread his own hands to the side, flicking his cape behind him as he released his own wild power signified by an eruption of violet aura from his body.
"Th-That Ki…" Bardock shook in mid-air. "Something's not right, there's no way that you can be that strong…"
"Oh? But I'm the king of all Saiyans, aren't I? Wouldn't it make sense that I'm also the strongest out of all the Saiyans too?" King Vegeta spread his arms out, mocking Bardock with a smug grin that looked very wrong on the face of the usually grumpy king.
"You've sold our race out, accepted Frieza's army on our planet, and pretty much allowed him to occupy us. Every day you found novel ways to curse your own heritage by surrendering more and more of that which makes us proud to be Saiyans to that tyrant!" Bardock dismissed the king's mockery. "I refuse to accept your would-be strength. There's no way that a sellout worm such as yourself could have become this powerful!"
"Or perhaps I was merely disguising my true power, luring fools like you to their early graves?" King Vegeta suddenly became serious, beaming a hateful stare right at Bardock. "My soldiers told me you've been captured by some Earth-grown Saiyan and his goons. That means they're even more powerful than you, but also that would mean that they might just be more powerful than prince Vegeta himself, which is confusing. Out of nowhere, there shows up now not one but two Saiyans, both of them more powerful than the strongest Saiyan? Lord Frieza won't like this one bit."
"I've no idea what's going on here or where this insane power's coming from, but I'm going to let my fists unveil the truth!" Bardock proclaimed as he took a fighting stance, preparing to attack King Vegeta at once.
"I suppose I can say the same thing. I'll have to beat the truth about you and those mysterious Earthlings from you too!" King Vegeta jumped up, taking a quirky pose of widely spread legs, crossed by the feet and outwardly stretched out arms, pointing diagonally up as the king bent his entire body forward.