After a few minutes of flying, Goku suddenly stopped, prompting Piccolo and Gohan to pause in their flight as well.
"He's on his way, and this is as good a spot as any," Goku remarked.
Piccolo nodded in agreement. "Indeed. Now...are we all ready for this?" Goku nodded enthusiastically, while Gohan paused for a second before nodding in turn. "Very well. Now...release the maximum of your power!"
Goku complied, powering up to the maximum of his base power alongside Piccolo and Gohan, releasing waves of ki which rocked the surrounding landscape. Piccolo took this task a step further, tossing aside his weighted clothing until he was left with only his standard gi and shoes. This accomplished, the three warriors hovered in wait for a moment before a rocketing burst of ki could be seen in the distance, traveling faster than almost any combatant they had yet seen. Frieza halted in his flight a few meters ahead of them, and looked over the three warriors with a cold, calculating gaze.
"So...we meet once again, brat," Frieza began, addressing Gohan. The young Saiyan gulped nervously before meeting his gaze. "And you two must be the ones who decimated the Ginyu Force." Goku and Piccolo nodded. "And you even had the nerve to take my Dragon Balls from me once again," he added, to which the others said nothing, before he let his anger show through his polite facade. "I will not allow anyone to make such a fool of me and live to see the next day, do you hear me?! I will blast you all to atoms for what you and your allies have done!"
Gohan hovered back a pace, while Piccolo and Goku looked at the tyrant with bemusement.
"They always act like this, don't they?" Piccolo remarked.
"Like little kids," Goku replied, chuckling. Frieza's anger exploded.
"You...you dare mock me, emperor of the universe?! You impudent little-who the hell do you think you are to challenge the might of Frieza?!"
Goku smirked before his expression hardened alongside Piccolo's. "My name...is Son Goku," he began. "I was born on Planet Vegeta, before being sent away to a planet called Earth. There, I was found and cared for by a kind man, and gradually built a life for myself there. I made friends, and enemies, got married, had a son..." Goku said as he looked down at Gohan, who smiled back at him. "I've done pretty good for myself, all things considered. But you...you're poised to take all of that away."
Frieza's anger grew the longer the speech continued. "Why do these heroic types always have such boring speeches?" he lamented in his head. Goku, meanwhile, kept talking.
"We're not going to let you get the Namekian Dragon Balls. Even if you did, they wouldn't work for you. And I know that you're aware of the existence of my planet's Dragon Balls. You'll go there next, and hurt countless innocents in your relentless search for them...just like you've done here." Goku clenched his fist before entering into a combat stance. "You're not going to hurt my friends, Frieza, or anyone else! I'm going to stop you, here and now!"
Frieza rolled his eyes before clapping sarcastically. "What a marvelous speech, 'Son Goku!' But I'm afraid that mere platitudes are not enough to spare you from your inevitable demise. The power that I possess is beyond all mortal comprehension. It has no equal among mortal beings, no matter how fervently you devote yourself to these silly 'training regimens' of yours, and the data from this scouter makes it clear to me that none of you possess the power to pose a genuine challenge to me. Of course, I am aware of your marvelous ability to hide your true strength, but it makes no difference. It simply cannot measure up to my own. Sooner or later, I will kill you. All of you. Then, I will find your allies on this planet, and I will kill however many of them I need to in order to obtain my Dragon Balls. And then I'll kill the rest of them, and your wife, and your other friends, and all of the other residents of this planet Earth...simply in the pursuit of paying interest. And there is nothing you or anyone else can do about it." By the end of his proclamation, Frieza was grinning sadistically, his body tensing up as it prepared itself to release the full extent of his power.
Goku smirked. "We'll see about that."
With a deep breath, Goku steadied himself, allowing the ki he'd unleashed to flow throughout his body as he prepared to push it even further beyond. As soon as he began the process of doing so, Frieza unleashed the full extent of his power, causing the surrounding area to shake with the sheer intensity before he flew forward towards Goku. As Frieza rapidly closed the gap, Goku replied to Frieza's power in kind, needing only to go up to Kaio-ken Times Three on account of his recent power increase. Frieza was shocked to find his punch caught in Goku's right fist. After a brief struggle, he attempted to hit him with his left hand, to the same result. As the two struggled against each other, Piccolo drew two fingers to his forehead and sent a telepathic signal to Gohan.
"W-what the-?! How are you...?!" Frieza asked as he endeavored to break out of Goku's grip. Goku simply smirked as the two struggled like this for some time, before the intensity of Goku's power at Times Three overloaded Frieza's scouter, causing him to break away. No sooner had he done so than Goku flew towards him once more, this time powering up to Times Four. Frieza attempted to counter with a punch, only for Goku to easily fly out of the way and reply in kind, hitting him with a hard right hook across the face. Before he could recover, Goku hit him with several more blows, capping it off with a powerful kick which sent him flying.
Still reeling, Frieza was unable to avoid Gohan coming up from behind him, tapping into his anger and newfound power to send him flying upwards into the air with a roundhouse kick. Frieza moved to stabilize himself, but heard too late the faint sound of energy building up. Moving to the right as much as he could in a split second, Frieza narrowly avoided the full brunt of Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon, instead taking it across the side and leaving him heavily wounded. Weakened by pain from numerous injuries, Frieza found himself unable to sustain his own flight, falling down to the ground in an erratic formation as he clutched his bleeding side and landed hard near a mountain. In a matter of seconds, Goku, Piccolo, and Gohan had touched down in front of him, pushing him against the rock face as he looked up at them with seething fury. He struggled to stand as purple blood dripped onto the blue grass below his feet. Piccolo chuckled.
"How quickly overconfidence goes out the window when you're slumped up against a wall," he remarked with amusement as he charged up a second Special Beam Cannon. Goku found himself cracking a smile in turn.
"Yeah, after that whole dramatic speech of yours...I gotta say I was expecting more."
At this statement, Frieza snapped.
"'More?'" he asked, his pain and anger dripping with every word. "'MORE?!' You low-born, disgusting, pathetic monkey GARBAGE! You DARE condescend to me, Lord Frieza?! The most powerful mortal being to ever exist?! I...will make you SUFFER for such an insult!"
With a supreme effort, Frieza managed to let out a small kiai, powerful enough to tear off his armor in a single burst. He trembled all throughout his body as he began to concentrate heavily, gathering what energy he had left and devoting every last bit he could spare to the process. Goku and Gohan faltered, looking on in confusion, while Piccolo continued to charge the Special Beam Cannon with increasing apprehension. Suddenly, without any warning, his torso expanded to dramatic proportions, while the rest of him was left alone. However, this too began to change-his arms increased in length and thickness, followed by his legs rapidly expanding in size to fit his barrel-like frame, which seemed to increase in size even more alongside it. Finally, with a drawn out cry of exertion, Frieza's horns grew in thickness and curved upwards, becoming significantly more fearsome, while his neck became significantly longer to match the rest of his body. To the warriors' shock, even the wounds that had previously left him in such a sorry state were completely healed once the transformation was complete. With a few short, haggard breaths, the towering second form of Frieza looked straight at the warriors as he sat there on one knee.
"Tell me," he began, in a significantly deeper, bellowing voice than before, "how's this for 'more?'"
Several minutes before, another of the Dragon Clan elders stood before the Namekian Dragon Balls assembled on Guru's lawn, ready to activate them.
"We're ready, Lord Guru!" he called out to his lord and father from his position on the lawn. Guru nodded in approval.
"Excellent. Now, before we begin..." he said, turning to the Earthlings and the warrior Namekians, who were standing guard over the Namekians residing in Guru's home alongside Dende and some other villagers. "We are about to make our wish upon the Dragon Balls, but before we do so, we must know, definitively, where each of you stand, so that we can name you as exceptions to the wish should you desire to remain. Speak now, or you shall travel to Earth with the rest of us."
The warriors in question paused, each of them wondering whether they were truly making the right decision. Krillin moved to speak, but before he could, Dende spoke up.
"L-lord Guru! M-may I be allowed to speak?"
Tsuno and the other Namekians were taken aback by this, while Guru nodded. "Of course, my child. What is it you wish to say?"
Dende hesitated before explaining.
"E-ever since this nightmare began, I have been a witness to far greater horrors than any person ought to be," he began. Guru nodded sadly along with the other Namekians before Dende continued. "But amidst all of this death, watching and sensing others in pain, on both sides...it's stirred something. Some faint memory, like something I'd learned long ago, but have forgotten about since. And the more that I see, the more I'm struck with the need to figure out just what this memory means. So...Lord Guru, if it's not too much to ask-"
"Step forward," Guru interjected. "If my suspicion is right...you have good reason to desire this, my child."
Dende complied, walking up to Guru's outstretched hand calmly, before Guru initiated the procedure once again. When the ki was released, Dende didn't feel all that different at first. However, as he looked upon the wounds Nail's regeneration had yet to fix, the memory he had alluded to suddenly presented itself clearly in his mind. He flew over to Nail and placed both of his hands on his chest. Within seconds, a transparent field of orange energy swept across Nail's body, and his remaining wounds quickly sealed themselves up. The assembled onlookers looked on in wonder, while Guru smiled, his hunch having been proven correct.
"You have unlocked a marvelous gift, my child," Guru said. "Not since the halcyon days of my youth have there ever been healers among the children of the Dragon Clan."
"Incredible..." Nail said, his voice hushed by astonishment. "W-we'd all heard Lord Guru's stories, of course, but I-I was scarcely sure it was possible..."
Dende looked down upon his hands, pondering the power that he now possessed, before clenching his fists and reaching a decision.
"I need to stay."
Even in light of the miracle that had just taken place, some of the Namekians protested.
"Are you insane?!"
"The powers those fighters have are beyond you! It's too dangerous!"
"How could you possibly throw away your life like this?!"
"Would you really risk such a remarkable gift on such a suicidal endeavor?!"
"That gift is precisely why I must go!" Dende shot back at the last villager. "W-with this power, I could greatly improve Goku, Gohan, and Piccolo's odds against Frieza, as well as anyone else who decides to stay!"
"Goku himself assured us that he would be more than capable of eliminating the threat," Tsuno replied. "Every indication thus far suggests that he was correct. Goku is more than capable of defeating Frieza on his own, particularly with the assistance of such capable warriors as-"
Before he could finish the sentence, a cold sensation rocked the room as those assembled sensed Frieza's ki increase immensely, perhaps over twice its original magnitude. Tsuno was shocked into silence for several seconds before he eventually continued.
"Hm! Uh, G-Goku should still be more than powerful enough to defeat Frieza. N-none of you need concern yourselves," he said, not nearly as confident as he was before. Yamcha spoke up then, remembering a particular piece of information.
"This seems an awful lot like something I sensed earlier from one of Frieza's goons. In an instant he got much, much stronger than before, as strong as Vegeta was at the time," Yamcha pointed out. Tsuno was quick to reply.
"Well, then this is merely the last ditch effort of a warrior refusing to accept defeat!" Tsuno countered hastily.
"Or an indication of how much power he has left in store," Yamcha replied simply, to which Tsuno had no immediate response. Krillin piled on.
"I-if he shows off another boost like that, Goku might not be able to handle him! Then we'll really be in trouble!"
"You have no reason to believe-!"
"We have no reason to believe he can't pull it off again either!" Krillin interjected, to Yamcha's agreement. Before Tsuno could respond, Dende seized upon the support.
"As long as the possibility exists that Goku and the others might fail, we must provide every resource we can to ensure that they succeed!"
At this, the Namekian villagers were quieted somewhat, no longer quite as secure in their arguments, before Guru spoke up.
"Your wisdom goes far beyond your years, my son. If it is your wish to remain here, it shall be done."
Dende smiled. "Thank you, Lord Guru," he said earnestly, to which Guru smiled.
"Now...anyone else?"
After a few seconds, Nail stepped forward.
"I must carry out my obligation to my people. As long as Dende is placing himself into harm's way, it is my duty to protect him with my life," Nail stated simply. Krillin and Yamcha soon stepped forward as well.
"Even if there isn't much we can do...we shouldn't just cut and run," Yamcha said, to which Krillin nodded. The other Namekians hesitated, one of the three warriors stepping forward before the other put his hand on his shoulder, dissuading him from speaking up. The warrior sighed in acceptance, his shame evident on his face. Guru spared a glance at the three before turning to the Earthlings and Nail.
"You will all be permitted to remain. Now, make haste! I worry your dire predictions may come true yet..."
With a curt nod, Nail picked up Dende and raced down the elevator into the courtyard, Krillin and Yamcha sparing a quick goodbye to Bulma and the Namekians before following suit. When they had gone, Guru took a deep breath and gave the command.
"Summon Porunga, now!"
The Namekian villager nodded and began his incantation.
"[Rise, Porunga, God of Dreams!]"
At the Namekian incantation, the assembled Dragon Balls began to glow and emit a high pitched whine before a light burst forth and shot upwards into the sky. As the sky turned black as night, the form of the Dragon God Porunga began to take shape. Although similar to Shenron in coloration, Porunga was significantly more bulky, lacking the longer snout of his Earthen counterpart in favor of a rounded out head. He also had a series of spikes protruding from his head, and the same piercing red eyes of Shenron. Most significantly, Porunga's hands were far more humanoid than Shenron's, possessing four fingers of such size and shape as to make it believable for the dragon to pick up things just like a person. In a more humorous touch, the dragon also had a set of antennae on his forehead, just like a Namekian. The dragon looked down on the Namekian who summoned him and the others who decided to gather around him.
"O MASTER OF THE DRAGON BALLS," he began in a booming voice even deeper than Shenron's, "STATE YOUR WISH. I SHALL GRANT ANY THREE WITHIN MY POWER."
The Namekian cleared his breath before he spoke up to the dragon.
"[Teleport all good people, living or dead, from the planet Namek to the planet Earth, with the exception of the individuals known as Goku, Piccolo, Gohan, Nail, Yamcha, Krillin, and Dende!]"
The dragon nodded. "YOUR WISH SHALL BE GRANTED. I SHALL TRANSPORT THE HUMAN BULMA AND ALL OTHER NAMEKIANS TO EARTH, LEAVING BEHIND THOSE WHO DECIDED TO STAY."
With that, the assembled group noticed a strange sensation, as if they were being plucked out of the world and placed somewhere else by an invisible hand. In mere seconds, Bulma and the Namekians were teleported away from the planet, including the many bodies piled up all over the planet in the villages raided by Frieza and his men. Guru was the last to be teleported out, before the Namekian Dragon Balls began to rise up into the air. Porunga disappeared into the balls before they took off into space at a speed many times faster than light, seeking to place themselves as close as possible to their current master.
Meanwhile, Goku, Piccolo, and Gohan stood off against the imposing figure, Goku being the first to speak.
"What was that?" he asked, partly out of curiosity and partly out of apprehension. Frieza smiled, looking at the Saiyan with condescending pity.
"That," Frieza began, "was me transforming into my second form, a physiological change which releases further degrees of my true power. Case in point..."
Goku's eyes widened as he considered Frieza's words, but before he could resolve to fly towards Frieza, the giant had taken off at the maximum of his second form's speed, taking advantage of the fact that Goku had not yet powered up further. Goku reacted just in time to Frieza's attempt to stab him through the chest with his horns, yet the attack still left him with a painful gash across his arm. As the pain caused Goku to falter ever slightly, Frieza capitalized on his chance, sending Goku flying off into the distance through several mountains with a powerful kick.
This matter temporarily taken care of, he turned towards Gohan, only to catch a Special Beam Cannon to the face. Although not proving to be too damaging, the angle of the beam hit his right eye, forcing it shut. With a cry of pain, Frieza was left staggered by the injury, one hand clutching the area over his right eye while the other fired off a poorly aimed ki blast. Piccolo was hit head on and sent flying, landing hard on the ground.
Gohan then flew into the fray, his rage at seeing his father and teacher in pain dramatically increasing his power. Not expecting such a massive increase, Frieza was caught off guard as Gohan smacked him upside the head with a powerful kick. While he was left reeling backwards, Gohan continued pummeling him with blows, finally hitting him in the solar plexus and causing him to wince from the sharp pain. Another powerful kick quickly sent Frieza flying through the air, before Gohan began to charge up a ball of ki in his right palm.
"RRRAAAAHHH!" he cried out before throwing the ball at the tyrant, enveloping Frieza in an explosion of yellow ki. As Frieza landed on the ground, Gohan proceeded to fire off a series of short Masenko blasts, blanketing Frieza in a series of smaller explosions and kicking up a massive cloud of dust. Gohan sat in the air panting, the boost from his anger subsiding somewhat, before a quick check confirmed what he feared: Frieza was still kicking, his ki having gone down somewhat, but not enough. The dust cleared to reveal Frieza getting up off the ground slowly, some scorch marks and patches of dried blood indicating his pain. Gohan was left frozen in apprehension as Frieza hailed the young Saiyan.
"Not bad, brat! That attack managed to hurt even me," he finished with a sneer. "Unfortunately, all you've really accomplished...was to make me even angrier." With this, the tyrant powered up even further, flying up slowly towards Gohan. Before he could reach the boy, still left frozen at the extent of Frieza's power, all of them were halted in their activities by a curious sight above them: the sky becoming pitch black in the blink of an eye, cutting out the light of Namek's three suns.
"What the-?" Frieza said aloud, not knowing what was going on. "Why has the sky become dark...?" His mind raced through the possibilities before finally arriving at an answer, one which he most certainly despised. "Oh no...no, no, no, NO!" He let out a violent kiai in his rage, shaking the nearby landscape and weakening Gohan's resolve as he let out still more power. Piccolo, however, smirked, thankful that the others had managed to get their wish. No sooner had Frieza finished his tantrum than the sky returned to normal, Namek's three suns shining brightly, indicating that the Dragon Balls were gone.
"Curses!" Frieza spat out angrily. "While I was waiting for the Ginyu Force, you fools must have managed to gather all of the Dragon Balls, waiting for the right chance to make use of their power!"
Gohan, still apprehensive, refused to answer, which Frieza took as a confirmation in and of itself. He sped towards the boy, smacking him into the ground with his tail before he could react.
"And now my wish is gone! My dream of immortality..." Frieza said aloud as he pondered what to do, before chuckling. "No matter. I don't know how you used the Dragon Balls' power, but unless it was to make one of you saps immortal..." he left the sentence hanging for a moment before his scowl deepened. "I'll make sure your deaths are all the more painful."
He flew towards Gohan at top speed before he was intercepted by Piccolo, who attempted to distract him with a series of strikes. Frieza dodged all of these with ease before kneeing Piccolo in the stomach, leaving him gasping for air. Frieza was quick to notice an odd detail, finding it easy enough to focus on the fight at hand.
"Curious...his power is still nowhere near mine, and yet, it seems to be slightly increasing with every hit." Deciding to ignore the observation for now, Frieza sent Piccolo flying into a far off mountain with a powerful ki blast, tearing up part of his gi and leaving him wounded as he collided with the rocks.
His mentor's suffering spurred Gohan into action in spite of his fear, flying at Frieza and attempting to land several blows on him with renewed anger. However, these too were ineffective, and Frieza was quick to grab the boy by his head and knee him in the ribs, causing him to cry out in pain as several of them gave way. Letting him go, Frieza then kicked the boy upwards into the air, sending him flying a good distance before stopping himself with the power of flight. When he looked back down, however, he realized that Frieza was nowhere to be seen.
"W-where'd he go?!" he asked aloud, his anger giving way to panic before he heard a whoosh of air behind him.
"Here I am!" Frieza replied with mock joyfulness, before elbowing him in the back of the head, sending him crashing into the ground and forming a small crater below. Gohan struggled to get up, his ribs screaming in pain while his head was left throbbing from the impact, as Frieza slowly landed inside the crater he had created. While Gohan tried and failed to move, Frieza placed a taloned foot on top of Gohan's head, thinking about his previous observation.
"Yes...the boy, too, seems to be growing stronger, even though he has not been pushed to the brink of death," Frieza thought, his expression growing somewhat puzzled for a split second before returning to normal. "Bah. It doesn't matter. They will never grow to seriously oppose me." With that, he looked down upon the child with a sneer.
"You've been rather amusing, boy, but unfortunately for you, you've demonstrated precisely why I cannot allow any Saiyan to live." With this, he began to push down, causing the child to scream in agony. "Now DIE!" Frieza called out in a mixture of triumph and concealed anger at the boy's very existence. He pushed down on the child's skull with increasing intensity, only furthering his pain as Piccolo looked on, having forced himself out of the rubble of the mountain with a kiai.
"Hang on, Gohan!" Piccolo thought to himself. "I may not be powerful enough to stop him, but thanks to Kami's memories, I can put an end to this threat once and for all!" He reached into a storage compartment in his gi, intending to pull out a blue capsule he had prepared for the occasion...only to find it had been mostly vaporized, nothing but part of the shell and a scrap of the paper seal he had attached to the coffee maker inside remaining intact as he pulled it out. Piccolo and Kami both gasped in shock.
"I-it must've been that last attack!" Kami said in Piccolo's mind. "When the ki blast hit you, the energy tore the capsule apart!"
Piccolo growled as he contemplated his circumstances. "D-damn it...!" he muttered angrily as he tossed aside the broken capsule. No longer having his ace in the hole, he instead fired off a two handed Special Beam Cannon, the rapidity of the attack allowing it to quickly intercept Frieza. However, even this attack managed only to faze the tyrant slightly, as if he'd been hit in the head with a small pebble. He continued crushing Gohan's skull while he held out his right arm with his palm open, grinning wickedly as he prepared to finish Piccolo off.
However, no sooner had he charged it when he heard a high pitched whine somewhere to his left. Leaping up hurriedly, he still barely managed to avoid the Kienzan intended for his head, cutting off a part of his tail instead and leaving him to wince in pain. He looked angrily towards the likely source of the attack, finding Krillin and Yamcha hovering off in the distance.
"Y-you! Of course!" Frieza remarked angrily. "And you seem to have brought some other maggot with you!"
"KIENZAN!" Krillin cried out as he threw several discs at Frieza, intending to prevent him from successfully dodging and ultimately being grievously wounded by one of them. At the same time, Yamcha bulked up into Max Power and began his own attack.
"SPIRIT BARRAGE!" he cried out before throwing ten small Spirit Balls in Frieza's direction. He then returned to normal and held out his hands, stopping all of them short. With a rapid series of movements, each finger on each hand controlled the trajectory of a different Spirit Ball, sending them flying every which way and catching the tyrant off balance. At first, Frieza's attention was divided by the numerous spheres of ki, but after gauging their level of power, he began simply swatting them aside like flies, sending them flying off in various directions at speeds too fast for Yamcha to control. Nevertheless, he managed to hit Frieza directly in the face with one, blinding him just long enough for him to duck under Krillin's last Kienzan slightly later than the others. With another wince, Frieza recoiled as he felt his horns being cut off slightly above the base, leaving only dull stubs in their place.
Frieza growled angrily as he looked up at the two, hearing the sound of something stretching behind him just in time to grab Nail's stretched arm, and promptly pulled him around to face him before hitting him savagely in the stomach, caving it in slightly as he picked him up by his gi and threw him to the ground, landing with a hard thud. Before Krillin and Yamcha could even react, Frieza was already upon them, kicking Krillin so hard that it knocked him out of the power of flight, leaving him to fall to the ground.
"SOLAR FLA-!" Yamcha began, holding out his hands in the traditional pose before Frieza grabbed him by the shoulders and headbutted him, leaving him unconscious and hurtling to earth. These minor inconveniences taken care of, Frieza was about to turn his attention back to Gohan and Piccolo when he suddenly found himself intercepted by a fist cloaked in a glowing red aura, sending him flying through the sky. Before he could even respond, Goku, having powered up to Kaio-ken Times Six and doing his best to ignore the pain in his cauterized arm, caught up to him and smacked him into a mountain. Goku touched down in front of Frieza as he blew apart the rubble with a kiai.
"You...you're no ordinary warrior, are you?" Frieza remarked, chuckling. "To think that one of you low-born monkeys managed to grow so powerful as to challenge me in this form..."
Goku simply scoffed. "You know, I'm gonna be honest, all this 'low-born' talk was annoying enough with Vegeta."
Frieza laughed, his voice deep and bellowing. "Yes, I imagine it was. So, then, why don't we focus on something else? Something like killing you, perhaps?"
Goku chuckled. "You can try."
With that, the two charged at each other, Frieza releasing the bulk of his second form's power while Goku stayed in the Kaio-ken Times Six. As each one continued to rain blow after blow upon the other, they were left at an impasse, their battle shaking the nearby rocks around them. At the same time, Piccolo, satisfied that Goku had the situation under control, moved to tend to Krillin, Yamcha, and Nail, who were left unconscious in various places throughout the area. Dende, meanwhile, approached Gohan, whose head was still swimming from the cranial trauma and other injuries.
"Don't worry, Gohan. Everything will be alright in a second," Dende replied as he put his hands over the boy's torso. Within seconds, he became enveloped in an orange light, and most of his wounds disappeared. With a slight grunt of exertion, he got back up, his head clearing as he marveled at what Dende had done. Piccolo, who had flown towards them carrying Yamcha, Krillin, and Nail with telekinesis, was similarly stunned.
"You...healed me," Gohan remarked plainly, to which Dende nodded. "When did you-?"
"Lord Guru unlocked my potential before everyone else teleported away!" Dende said excitedly, before he heard the whoosh of air behind him and turned around to look at the unconscious warriors in Piccolo's grasp. "Oh, gosh, guys!" he said in panic, while Piccolo set them down gently. One by one, Dende used his powers on them, restoring their bodies and allowing them to regain consciousness.
"Man...I knew he'd hit like a truck, but..." Yamcha said, rubbing his head with a groan. Krillin and Nail were in similar condition for a moment before they got their bearings.
"Does anyone have a plan on how to best lend our assistance?" Nail asked. Gohan, however, took a deep breath, feeling the influx of ki throughout his body due to his near-death experience, and looked off towards Frieza with a calculating glare.
"Yeah. I think I've got something," he said simply, before rocketing off as fast as he could fly. Piccolo smirked at the boy's bravado while the others looked on in shock. Meanwhile, Goku and Frieza were locked in combat, with Frieza noticing several curious details about Goku as his veins began to bulge somewhat.
"Curious...his muscles are evidently under immense strain. Likely a side effect of this power multiplication technique of his. And yet...he too seems to be getting stronger." He noted this last point mere seconds before Goku hit him in the face with a stray punch, before he blocked the next few, seeking an opening to reply in kind while at the same time accepting what seemed to be a simple fact. "Even my second form...it is quite possible that it is not strong enough to defeat this pest." If Frieza were unoccupied, he'd have scoffed at the notion. "How annoying," he thought dryly to himself. "But I suppose I am left with no choice but to-"
His thoughts were interrupted by a second figure flying onto the scene. Frieza was taken aback at the child's reappearance, while Goku was relieved that his son was okay, yet also confused as to how this was so.
"What?! How did he get up?! I was certain he was close to death!" Another thought then entered his mind as Gohan began charging up yellow ki above his head. "Close to death...oh, no." Frieza hurriedly attempted to get Goku off of him, headbutting him as hard as he could to make him move back a pace. However, Goku was already set upon moving backwards, sensing Gohan's impending attack. Frieza flew up to meet the child as fast as he could, only to find himself too late.
"MASENKO HAA!" Gohan cried out, firing off a yellow energy wave that sent Frieza hurtling into the mountain behind him, causing a cave in that trapped him under a large mound of rubble. Gohan then landed next to his father, who was panting slightly as he dropped out of the Kaio-ken, and winced at the residual pain in his arm.
"He's...still not going down just yet," Goku got out, to which his son nodded. Goku took a deep breath before powering up to Kaio-ken Times Seven and cupping his hands in front of him in the familiar gesture. Gohan moved closer to him and followed suit, causing Goku to chuckle. "Ha! Well, I'll be! Who taught you that?"
Gohan smiled, looking up at his father. "Same guy who taught you."
Goku smiled as well, thinking of his master before feeling a jolt in his head, telling him that somebody's ki was rising. "Wait a second..." He felt around for the source before coming to rest on the rubble in front of him. His eyes widened in panic. "Aw, crap, Frieza's ki is rising fast!" Gohan and the others panicked as well, all of them thinking the same thing was about to happen. Goku began charging the Kamehameha as fast as he could, Gohan rapidly following suit as Frieza's ki grew ever larger.
"KA...ME...HA...ME..." Goku and Gohan said, only a second behind each other. Meanwhile, they could hear the tyrant's cry of exertion growing ever-louder from beneath the rubble.
"HYAAAAAAAAAH...!"
No sooner had the volume of Frieza's cry reached its crescendo than Goku and Gohan released their attacks simultaneously, forming a single blast of great power.
"HAAAA!" they cried in unison, the combined Kamehameha vaporizing the rubble and enveloping Frieza to such an extent that they couldn't see clearly just what he had turned into, made even worse by the debris kicked up by the attack. As the Kamehameha continued on its course, the smoke where the mountain once stood cleared, and Goku grimaced as Gohan and the others looked on in horror. They could sense that even their combined power had not been enough.
A shorter, more monstrous figure stood with his hands outstretched, evidently having blocked the attack. His nose was completely gone, having retracted back into his face somehow, while the cranial attachment on his head had morphed into an elongated form, stretching out in a bulbous curve. What was left of his horns had retracted into the shell, while his neck shrunk alongside the rest of his body. His shoulder armor partially detached from his shoulders to form wider shoulder guards, and his face had stretched out around the upper and lower lip. To top it all off, a series of blunt spikes of varying lengths, whose purpose appeared to be almost entirely cosmetic, sprouted off of his cranial shell and across his back. Most of his earlier injuries had disappeared, but the dried blood around his tail still remained, nagging him slightly. Nevertheless, however, he allowed himself a grin of satisfaction, before he addressed Goku in a raspier voice than before.
"Tell me, monkey...are you still hoping for more?"
Dang, only one chapter and we're already up to Frieza's third form! Intense!
Sorry, the release of this chapter almost slipped my mind, so I didn't give myself the same opportunities to edit it much. Hopefully it turns out okay. But, in any event, we're done with the first chapter of the final arc of this saga! Of course, with that, we're also coming close to the end of the actual chapters that I've written-I planned this out so that I'd be able to upload finished chapters through the rest of school, thus freeing up the summer to work on new content when I can. After Chapter 21, I'll have to get back into the swing of things, so your feedback will be more important here than usual. Please don't hesitate to leave your thoughts!
Anywho, time for responses!
KyuubiFan325 says:
"classic goku depends on power level multiply techniques and neglects his base"
Oh, Idk about all that. His base is still almost twice as strong as it is in canon, and Guru unlocking his potential tipped over that margin. That higher base is definitely going to come in handy later.
Ushindeshi says:
"Cool chapter. Can't believe Vegeta got his body swapped by Ginyu so easily. I hope he's not out of the fight yet. And how did Yamcha got his right arm back anyway."
Yep, that's what happens when you don't go for the head.
Also, I believe it's been stated in canon that a Senzu bean can heal a missing limb like an arm even after the tissue's been repaired in the stump, which I've been having the characters poke fun at a bit, since Yamcha was unaware of this. So, I tried to write that like how I'd imagine a human suddenly regenerating the rest of their limb through a stump like that would look, which was...gruesome, to say the least.
Alright, now for power levels!
Frieza(2nd form): 1,060,000(he does say "over" a million, after all)
Goku(base): 205,000(at present, while his power is slowly increasing the longer he fights thanks to Guru, it's not really making too much of a measurable difference just yet. As a result, his power when multiplied by different degrees of the Kaio-ken fluctuates a bit, but it should be easy to guess which levels of it curbstomp )
Gohan(enraged): 850,000
Gohan(base): 533,000
Piccolo(base): 453,000
Piccolo(full Special Beam Cannon): In the ballpark of 550,000
Frieza(3rd form): 2,120,000
Gohan(post-Zenkai): 1,200,000
With all that said, thank you all for reading, have yourselves a fantastic day, and take care!