Since Baby refused to rely on Vegeta's instincts, Goku could only wonder if he realized by that time that the longer he fought, the more times he tapped into the Super King Kai's Fist, the less effective it would end up. Because each time Goku used that technique, it had a very notable response on his body, each time he used Super King Kai's Fist, he would have to amp the technique up higher to achieve the same result. Despite being much more powerful and usable in a Super Saiyan form, Super King Kai's Fist still had the same drawbacks as the original.
"Your hits are hardly registering as notably as they did before. Have you gotten as tired of this as I am or are you keeping something in the reserve on me?" Baby Vegeta sneered after a less-than-impressive attack from Goku left a bitter taste in his mouth.
"Heh… Sorry, just getting the hang of this technique took me all the time I had training before this fight. I don't think I have any other surprising techniques. That being said, I'm not the type of fighter to underestimate when their back is against the wall," Goku snickered, with a hint of bitterness as well. He was fully aware of how lacking he was against his opponent. If he were to match Baby Vegeta beat by beat, he would need to crank up the power of his Super King Kai's Fist now. Given how he was already over the dotted line, that could have been suicidal to go for.
Baby rushed at Goku, putting the Saiyan on the defensive, but Baby Vegeta was simply too fast. A crushing elbow smacked into Goku's nose, busting it and transferring most of the force of the hit between the Saiyan's eyes. Leaning down, Baby swept Goku's feet to flip him over and hold him suspended and powerless in mid-air. The Saiyan's eyes teared up, preventing seeing his opponent clearly. His nose splashed blood all over, making breathing impossible. Because of the pain, Goku couldn't focus on sensing Baby's Ki or listening to his movements so he was relying on pure guesswork.
A kick sent Goku up into the air while Baby Vegeta vanished away and appeared right where Goku flew up to, grabbing hold of both his feet and swinging him in mid-air. After releasing him for a diagonal slam behind him, Baby extended his hand and channeled an energy wave that he blasted at Goku's dazed and battered body. The resulting blast enveloped the entire region of the Big Gete Star, busting down more walls, more labs, and devastating more chambers.
"That technique seems to have taken a toll on your body. It's soft as a puddy to punch. Like slime, almost disgusting in that way," Baby Vegeta scoffed at the firestorm and the accumulated dust and smoke before shifting his attention away from Goku, considering him done for. That was when a tight lock wrapped under his arms and weaved behind his head, applying ironclad pressure. Goku bounced back with a Full Nelson hold.
"Sorry, I'm not that easy to get rid of," Goku chuckled in a weaker and softer voice. His orange gi had been completely torn off and his blue shirt barely hung over his swollen, bruised, and bloodied musculature. It was evident that Goku was pushing himself to his limit and beyond, whereas Baby had just begun to fight seriously and suffered minor damage. The following attack was meant to change that.
With a snap, an identical copy of Goku appeared in front of Baby Vegeta, and then another pair split from the one in the center, drawing their arms back as they prepared a Super Kamehameha of their own. Baby's black-tinted eyes widened in shock at this sight. He began wildly thrashing around in Goku's grip before transitioning to the bargaining stage of an inevitable pain train.
"Ka… Me… Ha… Me…" the clones chanted in unison while channeling powerful Kamehameha waves in their hands and burning up with Super King Kai's Fist.
"Multiplication!? I wasn't aware that Saiyans could do that!" Baby hissed.
"It's not about me being a Saiyan. I actually borrowed Tenshinhan's technique here. The flaw of the original was that it split the user's Ki into the same number of parts as the number of doppelgangers. However, if the copies use Super King Kai's Fist, that weakness can be circumvented. I borrowed that idea from Krillin, actually," Goku cackled while barely maintaining his Full Nelson hold. "You'll have to take all of our Kamehameha and eat them head-on!"
"Ha!" the duplicates exclaimed in sync with each other, thrusting their arms forward and unleashing a triplet of Super Kamehameha that weaved around each other and became a singular, indomitable blast. A blast that was so massive that even if Baby wanted to dodge it, at that point, it would have been a fool's errand.
"Idiot! You'll get yourself killed alongside me!" Baby Vegeta cursed.
"Who said I'm the original?" Goku gave his pale opponent one last sheepish smirk of defiance before the devastating triple Super Kamehameha enveloped them both and boomed into a terrifying pillar that erupted from both the northern and southern hemispheres of the Big Gete Star like a raging quasar. A vigorous shockwave resonated through the entire station, blacking it out for a few seconds before overloading it with energy to absorb and work into its reserves.
While Goku hovered in mid-air, the spare copies merged with his body while he panted with a clutch over his chest. By obliterating his clone, he denied himself the chance of absorbing the Ki that he had invested into it back. This was a terrifying gambit, but it was worth it just to exploit when Baby's guard had been lowered. Seeing Baby emerging from the dust cloud with minor scrapes and dirt marks, Goku powered up to the limit before calling forth the scarlet glow again.
"Super King Kai's Fist x4!" he yelled out, multiplying his Super Saiyan strength farther than he ever managed to during training. With how novel of a technique it was, Goku set himself with the same limitations that King Kai originally set him for the King Kai's Fist. To only use it up to twice a day and never crank it up any higher than x2. And yet… Just like during the battle against Lord Slug, this climactic battle required Goku to push himself further to even stand a chance.
Throwing himself with everything he had, Goku slammed with an elbow shot into Baby Vegeta's face, ringing it back before plunging down for a sweep. After leaving Baby Vegeta rolling in mid-air, Goku unleashed a berserk flurry of blows. He only had a heartbeat to taste the fruit of this power that surpassed his bodily limits, so he couldn't afford to be fancy about it. Just keep swinging, keep punching, and inflict as much damage as possible before the inevitable drawbacks. With an uppercut, Goku sent Baby flying and then clenched his fist, focusing all of his energy on it.
"I'll put everything I have into this fist! This has to stop you, because if I won't, who will!?" Goku cried out, letting his Ki explode while his fist still shimmered with a separate golden shine and a sparkling red flame around it. Soaring through the air, Goku thrust his fist forward. The radiant Ki formed twin intertwining dragons resembling the Divine Dragon in shape. One of them was golden, the other one blood-red. Both of them collided together to tackle Baby Vegeta at the point of impact where Goku's fist hit his opponent.
While the fist plunged into Baby Vegeta's abdomen, striking fear in the face of the shocked Tsufurian, it failed to penetrate it. Despite the failure of his full strength, Goku detonated his Super Dragon Fist, making both him and Baby Vegeta disappear in a cloud of smoke and a twin-color firestorm of gold and red. The two stars of differing colors mingled together briefly before going critical and bursting. The resulting explosion violently yanked Baby Vegeta and Goku aside to slam against some random debris. While Goku became stuck in a wall of the engine room, Baby Vegeta fell into the abyssal depth and further toward the Big Gete Star's core.
Gargling and spitting mouthfuls of blood, Baby Vegeta erected himself from underground. He couldn't believe what he was seeing as he hovered out from the abyss and stared at the bloody glove where he just threw up. His hand shook. Even in this ultimate adult form, this peerless Saiyan body was approaching its limit. Somehow, some pest with a vastly inferior battle power pushed him to that point… It was just like with that asshole's father back then.
"No!" Baby Vegeta called out, shaking violently in wrath and doing little to obstruct the rampant bleeding from his caved abdomen. "I refuse to lose! I will not be humbled by some Saiyan ever again!" his power exploded all at once while Goku could only stare at the most amazing opponent he had ever faced powering up in front of him with a broken body that refused to listen. Even staring was difficult as his right eye desperately wanted to close, requiring all the effort Goku had to give just to keep it open and able to see.
"Crud… I just don't have the strength to keep going. Not to even move a muscle!" Goku hissed and scoffed out, paralyzed in pain that ground all of his bodily muscles into powder all over. It felt like someone was meticulously pulling out and tearing apart every muscle strand in his body in front of him, letting Goku feel every tiniest bit of it. Despite the agonizing burn, Goku's muscles tensed up all by themselves with pointless twitching, causing even more torment.
"That's just great! I won't repeat the mistake I made with your father! I'll obliterate you at once before moving on to my destiny and reviving my people, restoring my planet! Begone, loathsome Saiyan!" Baby Vegeta extended his hand, channeling an obsidian Big Bang Attack in his right hand while Goku hung limp and crashed into some piece of mechanical wonder helping the Big Gete Star stay afloat.
The sounds of his son and friends grunting in the background, looking for a chance to transport back to Earth or find an opening in an infinitely regenerating and evolving army of Machine Mutant mechanical configurations and mergers snapped Goku out of it. The Saiyan's head dipped as he tucked his chin, feeling the chill of Baby Vegeta's despair and grief flooding the atmosphere.
"I'm sorry, Chi-Chi, Gohan… Everyone… I'd have really liked to come back to you and live a happy family life like we used to, but… Just this once… Your dad's feeling a little selfish. More than anything… Your old man is having the time of his life and just wants to win this more than anything else!" Goku looked up with a defiant smirk while a black Big Bang Attack was growing out of proportion in Baby Vegeta's hand right in front of him. "Even if I have to puppeteer my own limp and broken body, I'll throw it right through the finish line with an over-the-limit Super King Kai's Fist if I have to!"
"You're still yapping in there, Saiyan? Why don't you just do both of us a favor, shut up and die already?" Baby Vegeta hissed while making sure he channeled the most powerful Big Bang Attack he got and didn't leave Goku only half dead. He's had enough of Earthlings and Saiyans alike, pushing through impossible situations and defying all odds, and bringing the fight to him somehow. In the face of indomitable power like his own, all chances and all miracles were irrelevant. "Revenge Big Bang Attack!" Baby Vegeta chanted out after he was done and thrust his right arm forward, sending the black, electrified with white electricity energy bomb hurtling toward Goku.
"There's a good chance I'll rip my muscles out and eviscerate myself and just a thirty percent chance I'll survive this. But I beg of you, body. Just now, just this once… Hold on. HOLD ON!" Goku muttered before raising his head and facing the impending obliteration head-on. A sizzling line of white sparks washed up his body, igniting Super Saiyan around his body that flickered back to the base state on occasion. This was fine, all he needed was to time it just right. If he used King Kai's Fist when the Super Saiyan fizzled out, he'd be drastically short of power and die immediately. Just one heartbeat. That was all he needed. "SUPER KING KAI'S FIST x10!"
Revenge Big Bang Attack collided with Goku's body, emitting a violent electric pulse and shooting off white lightning in all directions while sending rippling concussive tremors throughout the Big Gete Star. The attack stopped. Baby's eyebrows tilted slightly. A roaring beam of crimson shot up and down simultaneously, dwarfing even the black Ki bomb that threatened to finish Goku off and throw the other fighters for a loop.
Goku's entire body was flaring up. King Kai's Fist red aura sparkled around the ordinary golden shine as Goku's chiseled and overworked body attained an intense red hue. His hair spiked up and turned blood-red, far more intense than even the Super King Kai's Fist uses before. Goku's face was twisted in pain. That agonizing burn all throughout his body made him hate Baby, the one pushing him this far, with all his being. In his berserker stupor, Goku leaned forward and rammed his shoulder into the Big Bang Attack before driving a hook into its lower side, sending the attack hurling up and blasting through the Big Gete Star ceiling to detonate in a far-off star system, obliterating every single system within its range.
"No!" Baby hissed, finding a new way to hate the Saiyan who put up such a valiant fight and defied all odds against him. "You should have died already! This makes no sense!"
"I can die all I want after I BEAT YOU!" Goku cried out in pain before taking off in a straightforward dash toward Baby Vegeta. Something was a bit off. Goku didn't exactly shock Baby Vegeta with unbelievable speed. While vastly surpassing anything he's shown before and easily untraceable by even veteran fighters, to Baby Vegeta it seemed like Goku was hauling. His physical presence and the raw power of pulling his body forward with just his Ki, like he was controlling an action figure remotely, were impressive, but this sacrificed speed and reaction time.
Goku slammed his fist from an overhead swinging position, sending Baby crashing down face-first into the nearest mechanical miracle of the Big Gete Star. Feeling wholly powerless and limp after the devastating blow left him floored, Baby merely trailed down with a lax lip and a stunned look on his face. This was too much power. He was as good as dead. All his plans, all of his hopes and dreams… All of it ruined in the hands of this… Saiyan!
"Ka… Me… Ha… Me!" Super King Kai's Fist x10 Goku cried out, drawing his arms by his sides while burning on and preparing to execute his finishing attack. "Damn…" Goku smirked. "I guess I pushed it a bit too far, huh… Oh well…"
Baby Vegeta slammed against the nearest mechanical box and bounced off of it, flipping to keep falling lower and lower while Goku's Super King Kai's Fist aura vanished and his muscles churned and twisted out of shape, snuffing out his Kamehameha in an instant and malforming Goku's body to where it seemed like every single muscle in his body has been dislocated and ripped out of its proper spot. Malleable like clay and toyed with by a capricious child who liked the sensation of mashing clay between their hands.
"Dad!" Gohan cried out, turning away before a focused energy wave hit him head-on and sent him tumbling down too. Ignoring the danger, Yamcha decided to risk it and use Instant Transmission to hop right next to Gohan, but an energy beam hit him in the back and sent him falling with a tear on his back and a smoldering burn.
A completely demented scream came from the void that led to the lower engine rooms and laboratories. A vicious golden aura with a violet outer coating burst forth from down below while Baby Vegeta emerged, having recovered from the temporary stupor of Goku's desperation attack. With vicious mockery, the adult Neo Tsufurian scrutinized the fallen and writhing Saiyan who was experiencing agonizing torture of every single muscle in his body acting up in rebellion to the abuse it went through.
"That's right, you disgusting brute! No matter what fancy tricks you use, no matter how lucky you are or how devious! All that matters in terms of whether you live or die is power! Plain, simple, unchecked, raw power! You shouldn't act so surprised by it. It was, after all, you Saiyans that taught this to us when you used that raw power against all of our technology, all of our ingenuity, and all our centuries' worth of wisdom to wipe my people extinct! Well, it's time I RETURN THE FAVOR!" Baby let out a demented battle cry as he threw himself at Videl.
After slapping Giru, who attempted to intercept him aside with a backhand and getting Videl's attention, Baby Vegeta grabbed Videl by her right arm and leg, spun her around, and flung her aside before extending his hand and blasting a hole through her an energy wave.
"VIDEL-SAN!" Gohan cried out, exploding with a golden nova of turbulent force that obliterated every single Machine Mutant union configuration oppressing him. Before he could say or do anything, Baby Vegeta dropped with a charging overhead punch, slamming his fist into the back of Gohan's head and driving him across the entire floor with a sliding drag.
"Shut up… SHUT… UP!" Baby Vegeta bellowed from the bottom of his chest. "I'm sick and tired… Sick and tired of your incessant yelling and powering up! Your entire family! Your whole species! You've lost. I won. I'm stronger and you're all going to be dead!"
"Baby-sama, we've got signals of some sort of flying objects incoming," a Machine Mutant combination merged from multiple different heavy infantry units the size of a whole skyscraper and sixteen times as wide reported.
"Spaceships?" Baby Vegeta wondered.
"No, Baby-sama… They look like… Missiles," the Machine Mutant reported. "Our barrier is too weak to absorb their kinetic energy with how much damage the Big Gete Star has taken, but their destructive potency wouldn't even destroy a planet, so it's no threat to us."
"Pitiful Earthlings. At least when Saiyans rebel against their inevitable deaths, they actually surprise me and put up a valiant effort," Baby scoffed before turning to Yamcha and firing a triplet of fuchsia-colored Ki blasts. Yamcha took off, trying to dodge them and reach Videl to teleport her home in time for her to prevent her death. Baby's Revenge Shot curved and homed in on Yamcha's back, blowing him out and leaving him blown up, beaten, and tattered with his eyes rolled back and his mouth drooling. "I win. Now, let's see if we can still operate the transportation beam. I'm heading to Planet Earth for the Dragon Balls."
"Giru-Giru!" Giru cried out, rolling on his back before kicking up and crawling to Videl's lifeless body that had begun drowning in a pool of her own blood. "Never! Giru will never help you for hurting Videl!"
"Hmph… That would be so very intimidating, if I was asking you," Baby Vegeta scoffed, approaching Giru in a flash and scooping him up from the ground. No matter how much Giru tried to wrestle, shake, and wriggle, not even when he exposed high-caliber machine-gun barrels in his chest and unloaded energy bolts point-blank could he as much as scratch Baby Vegeta in his most critical of states.
"Are you sure about this, Baby-sama? You've got a grievous wound in your lower body. The Earthlings are bound to have more fighters and Saiyans available," an aerial Machine Mutant apparatus asked with a beeping, high-pitched background ruckus to its mechanical tone.
"Pain only makes me more pissed off. I've become wiser than to bargain with them or make peace treaties. I'll kill anyone and everyone standing in my way, and if they make me think that victory is impossible, I'll blow their planet up without a second of hesitation and both Saiyans and Tsufurians can join each other in oblivion," Baby Vegeta bawled out with a maniacal expression. Shockingly, Giru escaped his grab and crawled up Baby's arm, then hopped forward to wrap around Baby's face.
"Giru-Giru!" Giru cried out while a notable hum set off in his core and a faint glow emanated from the Machine Mutant's crevices. "Giru will make you pay for killing Videl! If Videl is dead, Giru is okay with dying too. Life isn't worth living without Giru's friend!"
"Y-You fool!" Baby lisped and babbled, barely able to speak from behind Giru's tight clutch. "You won't even put dirt on my face with this ridiculous self-destruction stunt! I'll just rip the Earthling Dragon Radar right out from the hands of King Vegeta's Earthling wife if I have to! You'll accomplish nothing!"
Meanwhile, Goku's agonizing muscle spasms had ceased, and he lay helpless, staring at the dark mechanical ceiling that had meek lights and functioning mechanisms flashing occasionally. It was such a miserable and artificial sight to die with. Goku would've much rather died seeing his family, the wide blue Earth sky, the sky-scraping mountains, or the refreshing, foamy rivers one last time. Fending off creeping death and a critical Ki level, Goku rolled over on his front and dragged his useless and collapsed body to where he could look up at Gohan one last time.
"Sorry, Gohan… I messed up…" Goku chuckled, wincing and covering his ribs but powering through and pushing on with his crawl. For the second time in his life, he could feel tears coming and choking him up. Just like when he saw his grandpa in the Other World. "Your old man just gets possessed with fighting. I couldn't stop thinking of how to fight longer, fight harder… How to win! I should have… I should have focused on how to get you and Videl out of harm's way first. Can you forgive me, Gohan? I guess… I'm not such a good dad after all. It sucks. Who would have thought that me, someone who's lived a life just looking to fight the next strongest guy around, would feel so bummed out about not having been a better dad?"
Goku wiped his tears before something warm and wet fell on his head and ran down his face. Surprised by this feeling, Goku felt it with his finger and saw a thick red smear. With a dazed and unbelieving look, he turned his head up, ignoring the pain in his neck and spine, both of which threatened to snap at a moment's notice if Goku strained them any more. Up above him, dangling over the edge of an upper floor, laid Gohan. The blood from his cracked skull trickled over the edge and splat over Goku's forehead, making something primal and vicious snap inside Goku.
"RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHH!"
Baby Vegeta's stare widened as he forced Giru off his face by pulling the round body so hard that his puny arms and legs broke off and clanked by his feet. Baby only did so to turn his head and inspect the source of that terrifying noise. Something was wrong. Something down below was spreading so much light that everything that wasn't in the range of its radiance turned black, obscured by its shadow.
The Neo Tsufurian gasped in awe after looking down and seeing Goku, bare-chested and chiseled, bloodied and bruised, yet standing on his own two feet with golden hair that grew even spikier than before, and stood up even taller, almost to a ridiculous degree. Goku's bangs began waving up wildly, thrown about by his incredible aura. The ludicrous energy being radiated by the Saiyan made Goku's golden aura take a jagged, fierce, flame-like appearance, leaving the smoothness of the Super Saiyan behind.
The golden luster vibrated and flowed at an accelerated frequency. The almost ridiculous, supercharged energy output resulted in an electrical discharge around Goku's aura, shooting off plenty of electrical sparks in all directions.
"This… Is this… The Super Saiyan 2 form that Saiyan was talking about!?" Baby Vegeta gasped in disbelief, leaning over the edge separating him and Super Saiyan 2 Goku almost as if to get a better look at it. "That… That was supposed to be impossible, only the royal Saiyan bloodline should have been able to access this form!"
Giru just beeped meekly, still clenched in Baby's hand but too weak to say anything properly. Just beeping noises in reaction to the tide of battle and destiny itself shifting once more, this time, in their favor.