"Stop, in the name of Don Kia-sama!" soldiers barked orders as they bundled in separate, grouped firing lines and unleashed a hail of plasma bolts at Bardock and Launch.
"Eat shit and choke on it!" blond Launch growled, firing back from her lead-spewing Uzis before realizing she lacked that oomph factor, at which point she threw a handful of hand grenades at the bundled troops and scattered them like fallen pins after a devastating strike.
Because the enemy soldiers were made of sterner stuff that could be put down with mags of Uzi and a few explosions, grunting and moaning, they began scrambling back to their feet. Just as one soldier thought he drew enough of a second wind to start firing back, Bardock's image flashed in front of him and smashed his gun to bits.
A dozen soldiers gasped, realizing that their guns were suddenly empty and that the plasma mags fueling them were missing. Somehow, they were scattered all around on the floor. Bardock appeared out of nowhere, sprinkling dozens of mags demonstratively, making the soldiers panic and break lines. Those that didn't turn and flee screaming for their lives were met with restrained throws and slams, performed in a split-instant.
Don Kia's finest realized they were completely outmatched and fled into their machines of war. Not because the tanks and fighter jets had better chances of fending the Saiyan and his equally barbaric Earthling partner off, but more so because they offered an additional layer of armor between the berserk enemy army of two and the soldiers seeking to survive the day.
All of a sudden, whatever Don Kia was paying them was nowhere near enough.
Bardock and blond Launch rushed onto the ground floor of the Don Plaza, expecting heavy resistance. To their surprise, they encountered none. Switching in and out of cover by the exotic alien gemstone pillars, Launch pressed her back against the side of a massive, cubical elevator in the center. Not feeling threatened in the slightest, Bardock merely strutted across the entryway, stopping directly by the elevator door while blond Launch called it down.
The elevator door opened with a delightful toll, revealing a bundle of large mechs inside, squeezed and aiming right at Bardock. Gritting his teeth in frustration, the Saiyan let out a valiant battle cry and crashed into the fray, ripping the armored layers and armed limbs apart with his bare hands. The torn parts as well as the mech pilots hurled out from the elevator.
"Hey! Watch it! We still need to raise this thing to the top floor!" Launch scolded her companion as a reminder so that he didn't get too violent in there with those mechs.
"Stop hasslin' me," Bardock walked out, patting his hands as a gesture of a job well done. With one hand, he heaved the remains of the fallen mechs out of the elevator and emptied it for their ascent. "It's not like you could vacate those guys without blowing the damn thing up. You're the only one who needs this thing, anyway."
"I left my jetpack in the spaceship!" Launch growled. "The one that got towed and totaled!"
"Whatever, just don't fall too far behind me," Bardock scratched the back of his head while staring through the window during the lengthy and, admittedly, impressive in terms of the sights it showed, ascent.
A mechanical hum interrupted Bardock's sightseeing session as a chunky fighter spacecraft elevated itself to the level of the ascending elevator-jackers and aimed its plasma gattlings right at the elevator that Don Kia and his esteemed company took to the top of the Don Plaza, without thinking of the consequences. Bardock's eyes widened as he shuffled through countless scenarios of how he could have best protected Launch, the elevator, and taken down the craft. The problem with a thinking man's approach was that a more trigger-happy woman one kept for company usually beat one to the punch.
"Take a hike!" blond Launch barked out, kneeling on one knee and placing a massive hi-tech plasma cannon over her shoulder. Bardock turned to her and called out for the blond bombshell to stop rampaging in their elevator, but his scolding vanished without a trace in the rumbling of raging plasma beams that Launch fired straight through the elevator window and at the fighter craft positioned to blow them up.
The spacecraft sank in fireballs and trails of black smoke, spinning out of control and smashing somewhere lower in the building's carcass. Launch and Bardock stumbled on their feet, struggling to maintain their balance in a quaking building. The merciless inertia flung Launch out the busted window face-first, subjecting her to the rushing draft that flooded to fill the elevator through the blasted hole. Bardock jumped after her and grabbed her in his hands, hovering above the ground and watching the elevator slowly burning and shaking left and right like a tolled bell.
The whirling gusts grabbed Launch's hair and smacked it across the bombshell's face, Bardock gasped in a jolt of awkwardness when he realized what was about to happen. Unfortunately for him, before he could say anything, Launch sneezed with a vocal and unapologetic "Achoo!". Launch's tendrils of blond hair turned curly and blue before Bardock's very own eyes and very confused navy-colored eyes, blinking rapidly as she stared at Bardock, equally as confused to be looking back at her.
"Great, just my rotten luck…" Bardock winced.
"Wh… What's going on… Bardock-san?" Launch squeaked out as her pale skin turned to a flush of light red, realizing that she was in the muscular arms of the Saiyan at a ridiculous height up in the air.
"I can't hear you up here! I'll put you down in the elevator and raise it to the roof myself," Bardock yelled back at her, making Launch squeak and hide behind her dark blue hair even more. With purpose, the Saiyan flew back into the elevator and gently put Launch down. Just as he was about to turn and leave out the window, he heard Launch's high-pitched, restrained voice.
"Umm… Sorry if I interrupted something…" the gentle, blue-haired Launch said, biting her fingernails while looking worried she ruined something important with her appearance.
"Don't sweat it," Bardock turned around and gave Launch a thumb up while turning the left side of his lips to point up in a subtle smirk. "Most of the time, I prefer you anyway…" he said and jumped out, positioning himself beneath the elevator and punching out a hole in the wall so that he could slip into the shaft and grab hold of the elevator platform from down below. With a hearty battle cry, Bardock forced the jammed and imbalanced elevator to shoot up and completed its ascent to the top floor.
"Don Kia-sama!" Gale and Sheila fell to their hands and knees, crawling before the blush-colored ruler in a regal red and teal-colored robe, spiky and flamboyant hairdo of bubble-gum colored hair and eggplant-colored dyed lips while the displeased tyrant flicked his gemstone earrings with the tips of his violet-dyed fingernails, seated in an oversized throne of leather that was so soft he almost drowned in it when resting against it. "It's the Saiyans! The Saiyans are here!"
"Th… The Saiyans!" Don Kia barked out, finding enough purpose to push his back off his stuffy throne as he ground his teeth and clenched his fists to the point of shaking tension. Seated in a mechanical chair behind him, a teal-skinned alien with a large hammer-shaped head opened his eyes and perked up with attention. "What on Earth could they want now of all times!? They must be looking to finish up their work and make up for wasted time now that Frieza's gone, huh?"
"How many?" the muscular teal-skinned alien, littered with black dots on his chest and head, with a cobra snake-shaped head, stood up. He wore a pair of tense and fitted purple trousers hanging over his shoulders on suspenders and a short but baggy red jacket with spikes on his shoulders and chained cuffs.
"We only encountered one…" Sheila looked up with a look that showed her to be utterly horrified for her life even now, with the two managing to slip away from Bardock's sight and making their way back to their master and his secret anti-Saiyan guard.
"Just one Saiyan sent you running!? Pathetic! I thought you two were worth entire armies all on your own!" Don Kia scoffed in disgust at the two commanders of his army who kept the population and the captives suppressed and maintained order on Don Kia's planet. "I should have you executed for incompetence!" Don Kia declared before unwrapping a red candy and flinging it into his mouth. As the tyrant munched on the sweet, caressing his cheeks and squeaking in delight at the sweetness, he made a joking expression and waved it off. "But I won't… Aren't I merciful?" he chuckled while reflecting on the delight of the sweet snack.
"S-So merciful, Don Kia-sama!" Gale slammed his large forehead against the ground. Just as the two military leaders accepted the fact they'd make it out alive after reporting complete defeat to just one Saiyan, a rowdy slam shook the dust off the elevator and cracked the decorated artistic composition of the ceiling on top of Don Kia's chambers. The soldiers guarding their ruler, as well as Gale and Sheila, rushed and lined up at the elevator door. The soldiers aimed their guns while Gale and Sheila aimed their open hands, channeling Ki blasts that lingered in their hands, blinking and ready to fire at any time.
Jingling with bugged-out tolls, the busted elevator opened its fancy and decorated with gold and gemstone doors, revealing a blue-haired woman sitting on the elevator floor, covering her ears and shaking in fear. The soldiers looked up from the scopes of their plasma rifles and even Gale and Sheila appeared baffled by the sudden appearance of this woman since she wasn't someone they'd seen before.
"This is no Saiyan," the blue-skinned alien in a spiky red jacket turned around and sat back down in his chair, crossing his arms and legs in disinterest. "This is a female Earthling."
"Earthlings are affiliated with the Saiyans!" Gale barked back angrily at the cobra-headed alien with a mouth of gnashing teeth. "Where there are Earthlings, there's bound to be Saiyans too!"
"If you ever left this piss-hole of a planet, you'd know that Earthlings have been quite prolific space tourists ever since the collapse of the Frieza Army empire," the muscular, blue-skinned alien replied. He sounded frustrated but also like he felt dealing with Gale was too much of a hassle to bother doing away with him.
"Ledgic! That's awfully mean of you to say about my precious homeworld!" Don Kia turned to his alien mercenary and waggled his finger in front of him in disapproval as if he were scolding a child.
"So… You're Ledgic?" a confident and low-pitched, masculine voice sent chills down the spines of everyone still standing on their feet. The ground ruptured where the soldiers were lined up and holding Launch hostage at gunpoint, scattering both Don Kia's personal guard and Gale with Sheila like meaningless rags. It was only when the Saiyan warrior with spiky black hair ascended through the collapsed hole in the floor that Ledgic opened his eyes and glared right at Bardock's own.
"Well, well… So, the dwarf was right. An actual Saiyan…" Ledgic muttered to himself. His mouth lingered lightly agape after he finished his sentence. "Interesting."
"A S-Saiyan!" Don Kia squealed out like a housewife at the sight of an enormous spider on her kitchen counter. "Ledgic! Make him go away, kill him now!"
"Order me around again at your own peril, you pathetic excuse of a despot," Ledgic hissed back in Don Kia's direction as he stood up from his chair and cracked his knuckles. The disposition of the teal-skinned alien instantly improved after setting his sights back on Bardock, as Ledgic smirked in excitement. "I've been waiting, polishing my skills for so long in wait for this opportunity, Saiyan."
"Is that so?" Bardock muttered, tightening the armbands underneath his armored gauntlets and adopting a fighting stance. "I'm afraid you might find me a bit tougher to handle than your usual Saiyan soldier."
"I hope so…" Ledgic smirked. "While it's all the same to me how much of a struggle you offer, if I find the fabled cold and ruthless Saiyan warrior race to fall short of the astronomical expectations that have been built up, I might just lose it and go nuclear."
"L-Ledgic…" Don Kia shivered, gasping in terror at what his precious elite bodyguard had become after setting his sights on the one enemy Ledgic agreed to fight–a Saiyan.
"Let's make one thing clear, Don Kia," Ledgic said, directing it at the tyrant, but not sparing the effort of looking him in the eye. "If you or your pathetic goons interfere with my match in any way, I'll waste no time in killing all of you and this sick empire you've built will beg for Saiyan brutality after facing my wrath."
"Oh…" Bardock snickered to himself. "You're one cold guy. My fists are itching now."
"Let's go at it then," Ledgic flashed a malicious grin. "After all this time getting paid for nothing, I'd hate to disappoint my client."
The two charged at one another, hungry for whatever the other brought about. Rushing headfirst toward unchained violence. Strangely, these two warriors became fired up as if they met their destined rival despite the fact they had never met before. One merely saw a fun challenge and a floodgate preventing the separation of the woman he loved from her alter ego, the other saw the fabled legend that would always serve as a glass ceiling, preventing him from rising to his full potential and glory, unless that legend was slain.
After exchanging a series of blows and kicks, carefully dancing around one another, and feeling each other's fighting style, strengths, and weaknesses out, it felt as if the two froze in place. Each warrior waited for their opponent to make the next decisive move, but neither of them did. Yet it was in that lone blink of hesitation that the rest of the world could catch up to their pace and realize how evenly matched these two combatants were in their deadly dance, best performed in pairs.
Bardock bellowed out a hearty roar and threw the first punch. In his typical fashion, the Saiyan held nothing back. There was no more hesitation, no more keeping back to allow his body to return to the defensive. Bardock's crazed expression, his all-out punch delivered the message and Ledgic could do nothing else but marvel at it with an adoring smile. The warrior slipped the punch, twirling gracefully before sweeping Bardock's legs and then thrusting a vertical kick that shot Bardock into the air.
"That look on your face as you attacked just now… Simply beautiful. Your speed and power… I can see now that this temple to greed and obscenity will be too stuffy for our match!" Ledgic commended Bardock, extending his hand and firing a dozen howling, missile-like crimson Ki bolts that blitzed toward Bardock with puffy smoke trails.
Bardock's usually focused stare of black eyes blanked out. These attacks were too many and far too fast for him to react. Was he being pushed back? Could this alien mercenary actually be worth his reputation? How could someone so powerful exist in this universe and where was this mercenary hiding all this time? The stunned Saiyan crossed his arms in front of him and tucked his legs in to hunker down as the blast ripped through the air, shattering the ceiling and blowing Bardock out from the Don Plaza, spiraling backward and riding the force of the impact of Ledgic's Ki blast barrage.
A sharp snapping sound alerted Bardock. The jolt served to stiffen his body and wake it up to action. The Saiyan blocked the incoming horizontal side kick without even turning to face his opponent. Instead of struggling against the force of Ledgic's kick, Bardock relaxed immediately after feeling it surging into his body and allowed the inertia to turn him around while Bardock delivered a punch and elbow slam of his own. The unexpected nature of Bardock's counterattack blindsided Ledgic, leading to the ruthless mercenary skipping this blow and nearly having his face caved in by Bardock's elbow.
Crying out with pride in his abilities pushing Bardock to excel in combat, the Saiyan berserker swatted his opponent higher into the lower atmosphere of Planet Imecka with a double ax handle slam. The Saiyan rushed toward his foe like a speeding bullet of black and green light, however, just as Ledgic opened his purple eyes and put up his arms to defend himself, Bardock pushed his arms and legs off to the side, expelling a red explosive energy wave all around him.
The teal-skinned mercenary blanked out, sprawling in awe of the erupting energy that seemed too massive and too widespread to deal with. Gnashing his teeth, Ledgic pressed his arms against the expanding red energy field and entered a valiant power struggle against it. Drawing from the deepest sources of anger and grief, Bardock's jaw extended so wide as he boomed to explode with as much power as he could in an instant that it felt as if it would blow off the hinges and just scamper off on its own. Bardock's voice, thundering from the physical strain, almost rivaled the rumble of the energy he exploded with.
"I-Impressive!" Ledgic grunted, realizing that his arms had begun feeling numb and that Bardock's erupting, uncompromising Ki was about to claim its prize. No longer could Ledgic oppose the volatile Ki bubble of the explosive energy wave, it simply swept the mercenary aside, throwing him rolling alongside the skyline.
When Ledgic stopped himself, the mercenary realized he was hovering far above the tallest skyscrapers of Don City down below. In a single dash, Bardock caught up with the rolling journey Ledgic had made and straightened his back, casting a serious glare back at his opponent.
"You caught me off guard there, mercenary," Bardock said as the two stared each other off. There was no delight in Bardock admitting to this fact as he was admitting to his own faults. "At some point, after tangling with Frieza and the Artificial Humans, I must have become a bit vain. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I could meet a match for my abilities on some sandy rock in some nameless cluster halfway across the universe from Planet Earth."
"Hmm… Can you see it, Saiyan?" Ledgic looked down at his hands which were trembling. "I've trained my entire life, challenging stronger and stronger foes, taking up suicidal missions only to be told that I'm good, but never being acknowledged as the best, purely because I'm not as good as the legends say Saiyans are. That is the pressure of facing that glass ceiling to the acknowledgment I deserve. I like you, Saiyan. And I admire your power. Unlike what I expected, it's every bit as amazing as they say. It will give me no pleasure to take your head to show to my clients as proof that I'm worth the work I put in, despite not being a Saiyan."
"Sorry, but I like my head exactly the way it is," the tips of Bardock's lips tilted upward. "Your face, on the other hand, could use some improvement. You're in luck that I'm in such a giving mood, I'll redecorate it free of charge!"
The two enemies who have become so intertwined with each other despite not knowing of the other's existence in the morning of that same day charged at each other again, looking to settle their score that meant an entirely different thing to each of them.