"Your skill in the art of combat is impressive, Vegeta, but with just this level of battle power, even my brother would have made a mockery out of you, as, I've heard, he already has." Cooler stated a cold fact before charging and driving his fist into Vegeta's jaw. The king's body bent backward in a perfect arc that drove torturous resonances through the Saiyan's body.
As Vegeta vanished away, Cooler hurled his knife-edge chop with a full body turn, reading his opponent's moves flawlessly as he slashed the edge of his palm into Vegeta's throat, leaving the collapsing king of Saiyans wheezing. Cooler's vicious chop had blocked off Vegeta's airways. Cooler hopped up and spun his lower body like a windmill, whipping his stunned opponent with his leg before swiping diagonally down with his hand and breaking through Vegeta's armor while Cooler's powerful hands rended the king's flesh, forcing Vegeta's body to release a splash of blood outward.
A flurry of strictly disciplined and adamant punches and knee strikes further punished the king's resolve before Cooler drove his fist into Vegeta's gut and straightened his back out, cracking his neck left and right. Styling on his opponent, Frieza's brother raised his finger and fired a pink beam from his finger that punched right through Vegeta's armor and flesh, though hit no vitals. Vegeta stumbled back with a dazed expression while the would-be space emperor rushed forward with punches and kicks before finally vanishing and appearing behind Vegeta to slam him down to the ground with a diving punch.
"Don't presume to know a thing about the Saiyan spirit…" Vegeta growled while focusing all his effort in merely rising from his compromised position from the rubble that his body had left after Cooler pounded him into the ground hard enough to level mountain ridges in the surrounding area of the asteroid. "I'm just getting started fighting and we Saiyans grow more powerful in each battle!"
"It's true that you appear capable of handling immense punishment," Cooler admitted in a quiet moment of reflection. "This is the most irritating thing about you, Vegeta. I would have to attack you with full power to wipe you out completely and leave you no hope of putting the incredible grit of yours to work, though if I did that, I'd risk leveling this entire civilization I've just taken under my care."
"What do you care?" Vegeta wiped the blood that was coming out from his inside through his mouth from the penetrative wound in his abdomen and the multiple internal lacerations. "You'd just obliterate them once they're no longer useful to you!"
"Tsk!" Cooler's face shifted to a hint of disdain as Vegeta's remark appeared to have gotten under his skin for the first time. The self-made tyrant vanished and drove his knee into Vegeta's gut, leaving the Saiyan king dazed while Cooler's tail wrapped around his neck and Cooler spun around with his entire body, flinging Vegeta up in the air. "You scat-flinging baboon! I am nothing like my brother. When will you realize that and stop stacking both of us together?"
Frieza's brother vanished and appeared behind Vegeta while he wrapped his arms around the wounded king. Cooler spun himself and his held opponent while his tail wrapped around them as well to provide a better hold over his enemy. The duo slammed into the ground with a flying, spinning piledriver, head-first. The surface of the asteroid gave way, leaving the two of them plummeting in the darkness of the underground caverns where corrosion had done its number on the cosmic body.
While Cooler straightened his body out and stabilized his position after the hefty slam, Vegeta continued falling unconscious. The tyrant hissed in hatred as he extended his hand and saw the collapsing debris of the asteroid all hurl toward Vegeta, enveloped in hot pink psychic energy. The bone-crunching myriad of merciless thuds served as a rude awakening to the Saiyan king, but it returned him back to consciousness and served as a grim reminder that his punishment was still not over.
Cooler shot upward, enveloped in a fuchsia-colored aura until he emerged through the breach on the asteroid's surface and landed on the ground level with his arms crossed. After he had settled down his breathing, something that was essential for proper Ki control and not wasting unnecessary energy and stamina while fighting, Frieza's brother raised his arms over the massive schism, enveloped the entire asteroid in his psychic energy.
"Let this entire space rock serve as your mausoleum, Vegeta. I'll just have to move this civilization to one of my own planets. To be entirely honest, they'll be better off that way." Cooler muttered while driving both of his hands together and forcing the asteroid to crumble and press together, closing all of its breaches and fissures as it compressed by a whole quarter of its original size, smashing Vegeta inside the cavern with all of its weight besides Cooler's own considerable psychic force.
Cooler's eyes turned behind him, where crowds of awe-stricken Crosstillians cowered in fear behind their pathetic and pointless machines of war. Mothers cradled their children while men simmered in their own helplessness. This brutal show of force had utterly crushed their spirits, and those that did not perish as victims caught in the crossfire and the devastation of the explosive battle collapsed, wincing in the uncertainty they saw in their future as a species and individuals.
A grungy sound of shifting dirt made Cooler turn around and witness a dirty white glove emerging from underground. The tyrant's eyes widened in shock as he didn't expect his enemy to survive such an unparalleled attempt to crush his spirit and his bones and leave him dead and buried underneath the weight of the entire cosmic body. With the dirty glove finding solid footing, the bleeding, and battered Saiyan pulled himself out from underground. His saving arm quivered as Vegeta collapsed panting and short of breath down on the ground.
His armor and bodysuit had been in tatters and wicked scrapes and bruises littered his entire body, not to mention the dirt that he had found himself buried down under that tainted his injuries and made them burn up with corruption with each moment that the artificial winds of the asteroid's atmosphere blew over him and aggravated the king's wounds. Just barely, Vegeta hammered his right forearm down and push his head to look up in defiance of his hated enemy, unleashing balls of hellfire from his bloodshot eyes.
"This battle is no longer capable of teaching me anything. Your body is in no condition to put your grand combat experience and instinctive skill to the test." Cooler sighed, dusting off his biological layer of armor while he charged up a bright red glimmer at the tip of his finger, preparing to execute Vegeta. "Maybe I'll take that tail of yours with me and show it to my father. That should serve as a fine lesson about hard work though it's not like my drooling brother is in any condition to learn any lessons anymore."
As the tyrant closed his eyes, as if signing himself off of this execution, a flame lit up in Vegeta's chest after hearing Cooler's words. The king of Saiyans rolled aside while Cooler's Death Laser technique, a modified version of Frieza's own Death Beam that's red in color and shocked and roasted the opponent rather than perforated them, only zapped a messed-up hill of dirt where Vegeta just laid.
"My tail…?" Vegeta looked down, noticing his flapping, hairy appendage between his legs having found a hole in his bodysuit to slip out and wave freely in the air. "When did that thing grow back!?" It truly was a miraculous feat, at a certain age of maturity, as Saiyan's tail had an incredibly slim chance of ever growing back if the Saiyan had lost it.
"I can see why my brother had such distaste for you and your species…" Cooler sighed, realizing that he'll need to put more of an effort if he is to kill off his irksome opponent. "Though you'll only make your death more gruesome and painful, I had hoped to kill you in a manner befitting that of a king. A king of a tribe of primitive nincompoops is still a king, after all."
"Damn it…!" Vegeta hissed to himself, pounding the ground underneath him in wrath. He had not expected such a turnout. In his mind, he should have been able to beat Cooler and even if the enemy pushed him up to a wall, Vegeta had not a single doubt that he'd have become a Super Saiyan and crushed Cooler in the end. This miraculous return of his tail put a sock in things. If he became a Great Ape, it was less than likely that he'd still be able to become a Super Saiyan, though he would gain a grand deal of power, perhaps even enough to pummel the crap out of his snotty opponent.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go! He was supposed to become a Super Saiyan! Why? Why was he still not able to ascend? He became the king of his people just as Kakarot accepted the power of everyone in the universe and borrowed it to beat Frieza, becoming a Super Saiyan. What else? What else could he have been missing? He was far more powerful than Kakarot was before becoming a Super Saiyan…
A large cluster of Ki signatures distracted Vegeta from his bubble of self-loathing as he gazed up in shock. The king shook his head in disbelief. His hands quivered in fear as he sensed a spaceship approaching at immense speeds from across the other end of the system, though it would be here within a matter of seconds. It was too late to do anything about it at this point…
"Hmm… What's wrong?" Cooler turned around and looked up, wondering what he could have been missing. He stood there gazing up in space for a second before glancing back to Vegeta. "You know, I half expected you to hit me with a sucker punch just now. I'm genuinely surprised you didn't try that…"
When the tyrant turned back to the object of Vegeta's terror, he noticed an entire fleet of spaceships hovering above the asteroid belt. Many more well-built soldiers had emerged through the open shutters and portholes to blast the cosmic rocks out of their way to make way for their descent. The Saiyan space armada had arrived and surrounded the Crosstillian homeworld.
"What's this now? An ambush?" Cooler muttered in an apathetic tone. "I thought the Saiyans were proud warriors, fighters who preferred brawling it out one-on-one. Was this always your plan?"
"Don't be ridiculous! Those weaklings would only get themselves killed!" Vegeta hissed out, having found the resolve to rise on his feet though he just barely could keep himself standing, holding his right hand while his knees wobbled in an effort to prevent the king from collapsing on himself and falling flat on his face.
"Our king! We have come to fight!" a Saiyan declared before a red shimmer lit up in Cooler's eyes, unleashing a red line of energy beaming out from his eyes that reached the spaceship in an instant and blew it up, vanquishing all the souls on board in a literal blink.
"You fools!" Vegeta collapsed on his knees and pounded the ground. "What have you done? You've doomed the entire Saiyan species!"
As the dark, starlit sky became murky and covered in clouds of Saiyans itching to fight, Vegeta was too crushed to look up and witness what would be the end of his entire race. Cooler held his distance at first, ducking, weaving, and dashing around, keeping his eyes on the armada over his head that could have exploded with some unexpected weaponry salvo at any moment though it soon became apparent that the Saiyans had placed far more trust in their hand-to-hand abilities than their technological prowess in causing artificial destruction.
"King Vegeta! We've tracked your spaceship from across the space station! We couldn't leave you to fight this battle alone." Parel landed near Vegeta, scooping his king up and helping him off the ground.
"You imbeciles! You're going to get yourselves killed. This will be the end of all Saiyans! Now that Cooler has seen you–you can't escape. It's the same as with Frieza!" Vegeta grumbled through pain and injury.
"Even if this is to be the end of all Saiyans, the Saiyans would much rather go out fighting than cowering or ruling in prosperity. This battle isn't yours alone, my king. It is a battle that every Saiyan born under Frieza's demeaning foot wanted to fight their entire life!" Parel passionately pleaded his case. "Now, what are your orders, my king? Will you lead us into battle or shall we buy you time to retreat and recover?"
"You… Low-class garbage…" Vegeta shook and simmered in spite before his tone softened in the end and he clenched his fist with a leathery squeak of his torn-up glove. "As if I'm going to cower and run while nameless grunts throw away their lives in my name! I'd never deserve to rule as king if I did something like that and even if I recovered strong enough to crush a ten billion Coolers, I'd never be able to forgive myself!"
"My king… The battle has had its toll on your condition though, let me support you…" Parel nodded with an attempt at bowing while holding Vegeta steady but the king wrestled himself out of the Saiyan's hold to stand on his own two feet.
"Support me? Don't make me laugh!" Vegeta scowled. "I will be the one to command all of you weak trash into battle, only then we just might survive!"
The king's right hand clenched into a tighter fist and then opened back up, forming a shimmering sphere of brilliant light in his hand. Parel's eyes became hazy just at the sight of the Power Ball, with a confident smirk on his face, Vegeta thrust it into the air and clenched his fist again, detonating the sphere and forming an artificial nova in the sky that burnt with just enough intensity to cause the Great Ape transformation. This was how Saiyans used to conquer planets–an unbelievable Great Ape army commanded by their king, someone of the royal bloodline capable of controlling the mindless beasts and gives them purpose and discipline.
Cooler threw his gaze all around as one by one the Saiyans he was smacking away effortlessly just a moment before began acting strangely. Something was already off enough as it was that Saiyans survived his strikes and get back on their feet, something that should have been impossible unless they've become much more powerful since anyone has last seen the Saiyan race, but now they've all ascended to the state of Great Apes as well.
"This is beyond ridiculous…" Vegeta grit his teeth, closing his eyes as he still was going through a struggle inside that prevented him from going all-in on the idea of his Saiyan Great Ape army crushing the enemy all at once with a single, merciless and barbaric blitz. "I should have been the one to vanquish Cooler…"
A stray Mouth Energy Wave split the heavens and obliterated a handful of cosmic bodies up above in a fusillade of blazing blasts. Without control, Saiyans began rampaging on the Crosstillian planet, smashing and blasting away everything in their path. Realizing that he had no right to stand around and mope while Cooler plowed through the Saiyans and exterminated them while they had a tiny speck of hope for victory now, Vegeta focused.
"Hear my voice, Saiyans, the voice of your king, and heed my orders!" he yelled out. The Great Apes all froze static and abandoned their reckless rampage. "That man right there, he is the brother of Frieza and one who would subjugate us just like his brother did! As long as one member of Cold Clan still lives, the Saiyans can't live in peace so it's time you all fight and die for your future so that the future generations can know the times of glory that our race once saw. Fight as we've always done, cause havoc and leave no stone unturned!"
"Vegeta…" Cooler hissed, identifying the Saiyan king with his spiteful glare. But it was too late. A sledgehammer slam of a Great Ape crushed him to the ground while it stomped and bashed, looming over the alien tyrant. A splatter of blood burst forth as Cooler flew upward with Salza Blades formed around his forearms and sliced the Great Ape's leg to ribbons before emerging through the titan's knee and shooting in the ape's snout with his knee and bringing the colossal enemy down.
A massive arm swatted Cooler back down and left him in a crater down on the ground before stomping over him and jumping up to slam its entire body on the self-made emperor. A pink energy sphere repulsed the Great Ape and sent it hurling away at grand speeds while Cooler emerged and flew up with dust and dirt littering his bio-armor. Just how could these mere Saiyan grunts gain this much power that their insignificant Great Ape forms could hurt him?
"Vegeta! You'll pay for repeatedly comparing me to my little brother! I'll make you pay for it, I swear! You'll pay for it with your precious Saiyan race! Arc Blast!" Cooler bulked up out of unadulterated fury before raising his palm and firing a shapeless, green energy wave that then became a blizzard of smaller Ki blasts that targeted every Great Ape separately, bringing them all down to the ground, writhing in pain and reeling before they could jump back to battle as the titanic savages that they were. "Even if I have to execute every Saiyan individually by a list, I'll do it! I'll do it as punishment and you know me to be an honorable emperor, Vegeta, I always keep my word!"
Chaos erupted once more as mouth beams threw Cooler around the place, singing him up before the space emperor sprung back to action, dashing past more than a handful of Great Apes with Salza Blades in hand and opening their throats on the way. As more and more Great Apes fell, a chunk of a demolished building hit Cooler and pinned him to the ground while a roaring and snarling ape slammed its hip on top, crushing both the leveled building and Cooler who rested underneath it. A wild barrage of Death Beams from underground skewered the Great Ape.
Vegeta observed his subject fall to the ground, returning to normal before her back hit the ground, body riddled with holes and whited out eyes, blood spraying from her wounds and her mouth as the brave Saiyan woman died before she even hit the ground while Cooler burst forth from the rubble and rushed after the rest of the dwindling Great Ape horde. A wrathful punch dislodged an ape's jaw. With a savage roar, Cooler burst through the ribcage of another ape and emerged from the other end, executing the primitive beast with a Death Beam to the back of its head from behind. Cooler saw another beast rushing right at him but as he charged to meet it head-on. His fist stopped in mid-air, caught be Vegeta's own hand.
"What are you doing?" Cooler muttered, shocked by the fact that Vegeta still had this much power left in him to stop his full-powered punch. As much as Cooler hated to admit it to himself, he may have lost control and started going as mad as these mindless monsters, causing havoc on his newly conquered asteroid belt. Their primal resistance called forth the worst from the space emperor. The cruelty, the wicked abuse of power that his parent and sibling were so infamous for throughout the universe. "Your subjects gave you time to flee with your newly regrown tail tucked under your legs and you wasted it! You dishonor your people, king Vegeta, you disgrace their sacrifice!"
"Sacrifice?" Vegeta turned his head up to look Cooler in the eyes, instilling fear in the tyrant's heart when he laid eyes upon Vegeta's sullen expression. Bolts of lightning cracked behind the king of Saiyans as he held a tight and immovable grip around Cooler's fist. No matter how hard Cooler tried, it simply did not budge. This amount of power far surpassed what Vegeta should have been able to accomplish even at full power, whereas his injuries should have left him debilitated by now.
"You cocky bastard, what do you think this whole campaign is for?" Vegeta roared out as the lightning storm behind him became more intense and uncontrollable, reducing the few buildings that still remained to rubble as a cosmic storm raged and ravaged the asteroid's atmosphere, raring out the oxygen to a minimum and barely keeping a stable gravitational field intact. The king's hair spiked up in a wilder, more intense manner than they've already laid in normally. The color of his eyes became duller before taking a more exotic cyan shade.
"The only reason I'm so obsessed with eliminating your rotten to the core family and eliminating your every trace from across the universe is all for them! I am their king! I don't fight for myself. I don't fight because I want to prove my strength to you or your rotten clan. This fight, for the first time, it's all for them! That is why I cannot stand and watch you put their future at risk for my sake! It is my responsibility to make sure that they live, fight and die free and that what your brother has done doesn't come to pass ever again!" Vegeta bellowed as a golden aura enveloped his body and a wave of sparkling ethereal shine washed upwards, scanning through the king's body and as it passed over his hair, it left them in an exalted shade of gold while the booming force from Vegeta's rising energy swatted Cooler away like a helpless gnat.
"Cower in fear, Cooler," Super Saiyan Vegeta looked up with a look as confident as it was uptight. "A king has ascended to reclaim his birthright!"