Piccolo sulked atop of a giant glacial platform that he had come to call home. He had been quite receptive to both tropical and desert conditions, rendering training in most wastelands rather useless. The bone-freezing glaciers of the northern regions that expanded as a jagged, sky-reaching massive as a cap of the entire world was the only place challenging enough to consider a worthy training ground.
At this point, with seven years having passed since his defeat, sometimes he came to wonder as to why he doesn't attack again. Having once fought against Goku he had remembered the sense of the man's Ki and he could feel him at all times, even on the other side of the world. He had been keeping up with his training though he wasn't training for something concrete, he lacked a drive that Piccolo had and Goku's training had been lax.
It didn't even take a full year for Piccolo to surpass that which he felt of Goku. He had trained for a year more just because he knew the type of a crafty martial artist he was dealing with. Even last time Piccolo had Goku beat in terms of strength, speed, and toughness. It was skill and experience that got in his way, Goku had been alive for six times the amount of time that Piccolo's been alive and he had years of training and martial arts experience ahead of him.
He had none of the spite, none of Piccolo's accursed hate for the man, however, he had never spent every waking hour of his day hating someone so much that one could have sworn the universe itself would have opened up a hole in the sky and swallowed that person away just from the sheer hate that his enemy exhumed. And yet...
Years upon years had passed, Piccolo had grown vastly stronger than his rival and deepened the gap between them from the last time to the point where he'd be able to stand his own even against Son Goku's Hot-Red Mode, he was sure of it. Despite that, despite Son Goku being in his hand's reach, he never struck at him again. It's almost like... Like he was afraid or felt indebted to the fool for keeping him alive somewhat...
"Hell no!" Piccolo roared out, spreading his arms out and unleashing all of his Ki, trying to exhaust himself to relieve some tension. "I'm not indebted to that buffoon, if anything, I've come to hate him even more! I, the reincarnation of Demon King Piccolo reduced to ruin before him, driven to a condition where I had to rely on the mercy of my mortal enemy! I'll destroy you, I'll obliterate you and everything you know and hold dear, Son Goku!"
The glacier collapsed from the force of Piccolo's yell alone, as hefty ice masses splashed into the freezing water and raised mountainous waves that splashed and sprayed their refreshing sputters all over Piccolo without the reincarnated Demon King even flinching once from it. All that Piccolo was left with was the knowledge that this was yet another time he swore bloody murder but did nothing about it.
"It's his friends, that's right…" Piccolo looked at his clenched fist, oozing with strength yet refusing to plunge the beating heart right out of Son Goku's chest regardless, rendering it as useless as the fist of a weakling. "I am still too weak to take on them all. That other Saiyan woman, she might as well be as strong as Goku if not stronger. I haven't sensed her at all since the tournament though, who knows where she's been… Some of his friends had grown quite strong too. Yes…"
That was just an excuse and Piccolo knew it. The fist that once served as a blade that stamped the right to declare the entire world his now dropped by Piccolo's side. With an ethereal noise of shattered glass and a sudden fight or flight instinct blowing up like a landmine inside Piccolo's chest, his vigor and passion for murder returned. The reborn Demon King turned for a blank point behind him, sensing nothing less than looming dread. A Ki signature that didn't feel evil nor did it feel good but it was brutality incarnate all the same. The size of the signature felt absolutely horrifying, no matter the content of its essence.
"What's the meaning of this!?" Piccolo's jaw froze in an open position while his eyes felt like they'd bulge out at any moment now.
"Huh… A Namekian on Earth? Odd…" the master of the unnaturally high Ki signature proclaimed while pressing a button on the device he wore over his right eye. "Battle Power of 29 060?! Hmph… Then again, of course, a Namekian would provide Kakarot with difficulties. Spill the beans, what are you doing here? I've heard that Namekians were once a space-faring race but they've not been heard from for many years."
"You talk first, why do you look like exactly like Son Goku but your Ki feels completely different?" Piccolo took an aggressive stance.
"Oh? You recognize me then, Namekian? In that case, perhaps you have met my son, Kakarot?" the invader of dark, spiky hair matching the hairstyle of Son Goku and a scar on his cheek wondered, looking chipper and excited about Piccolo's threats.
This utter dismissal of the absolute death stalking behind Piccolo was infuriating. He spoke about someone similar to him being his son and Piccolo would have had little trouble buying that this bastard here was Son Goku's old man, given how the only person to look this overjoyed about being challenged by the reincarnated Demon King was the very same young man whom this assailant resembled.
"So, you're Son Goku's old man, huh? Well, well… That fool killed my own predecessor, I look forward to returning the favor. Maybe I'll fling what's left of you at his feet just to see him suffer more when I end up killing him," Piccolo smirked, transitioning into his fighting stance.
"So, then you haven't killed Kakarot yet, despite being the most powerful being on this planet. And my boy has managed to piss you off somewhat, I see. A natural rebel, a chip off the old block, it seems. Good, we'll need plenty of that in the future…" the tailed warrior replied by taking a wide. "Let's do this, Namekian, my fists are itching!"
"It's your funeral you're rushing to!" Piccolo growled and leaped into the air, charging at his opponent with an aerial divekick. His opponent had vanished, resulting in Piccolo slicing the glacial platform he stood on clean off with his kick while the Namekian turned his attention to the skies, having followed his opponent's movements through.
With his crystal-clear aura burning up, the enemy swooped down in a reversed arc and extended his arm out, releasing a malformed expulsion of Ki that couldn't have been called a Ki blast. It served as a neat distraction, Piccolo had to admit that when his opponent swept at his legs and sent the reincarnated Demon King spinning in mid-air before his tailed opponent stopped him with a stalwart push kick to the chest and transitioned perfectly into an airborne spinning flurry of kicks.
It had been a while since Piccolo had felt the taste of his own blood in his mouth. The fist of his attacker had almost punched right through him before a high-kick sent Piccolo flying up into the air seeing how the rampant shockwaves had reduced the platform the two were fighting on to frosty rubble. The enemy hit hard, so hard that Piccolo still couldn't recover in time to defend from his continued, relentless onslaught of strikes in mid-air and, before he knew it, his enemy was gone.
Piccolo knew that the Saiyan was behind him but the crushing blow of a double-arm ax handle slam to the back of his head that sent him deep down under and made all black out right before the plunge came before the Namekian could face his opponent the way he deserved to be faced.
"Heh, you're not half bad, I'll give you that. You'd give those Earthlings a run for their money perhaps, but I am a whole different thing entirely…" Piccolo emerged from underwater, dragging his knuckles across his lower face to wipe the few trickles of blood that the enemy had drawn from his cracked lip.
"Dammit, I figured you'd be a problem from how tough you felt to punch…" the airborne Saiyan clutched his wrist and tightened the red wristband that he wore over it with a smirk on his face. "Your power level is insane, though I'm yet to see what you can do with it."
The two rushed toward one another, throwing fists and kicks and clashing against one another. After the first two exchanges, the Saiyan began backing out of the clash though Piccolo offered little quarter. The reincarnated Demon King attempted to surprise his enemy with his unnatural physiology by expanding his arm to grab the enemy from behind but the tailed warrior leaned to the side and avoided the grab as if he had known it to be coming.
"I've fought your kind before, Namekian, you're not surprising me with any of your tricks, you know…" the scarred Saiyan mocked the naivete of Piccolo before swinging and releasing him into the air. The Saiyan saw this as his own chance to attack and thus he laid a siege on Piccolo's defenses though the Namekian didn't struggle too much about avoiding or blocking his opponent's attacks. The moment Piccolo even thought about counterattacking, however, his opponent vanished and reappeared a bit further away with a concentrated Ki blast gleaming in his right hand.
"Eat this!" he roared out and flung it. The Ki blast carried much more skill in how it was put together compared to the last one that had a different purpose – just to raise some dust and some ruckus and distract Piccolo. The Saiyan roared once more as he charged through the explosive detonation of his own Ki blast and rammed at Piccolo with a powerful tackle, sending the Namekian flying back. Just when Piccolo recovered, he saw a different, azure gleam swelling up in the enemy's hand.
"Spirit Cannon!" the scarred warrior yelled out and flung the real Ki blast he had been setting up for this whole time. The serious Ki blast erupted in a mirage of flames and smoke though the warrior appeared to be more focused on the sudden activation of the device on his face rather than the impressive destruction he had caused on the northern hemisphere of the planet.
"Was that you trying to kill me?" Piccolo taunted his opponent, letting the smoke and spraying showers of water from the roaring whirlpools below wash the tension of battle off of him with its current. The Namekian floated with his arms placed in a cross-shaped blocking position and appeared to be not at all affected by the explosion. "How about I show you the power that will subjugate the Earth one day?"
Piccolo taunted his opponent by dropping his stance altogether and cracking his neck a couple of times with a careless smirk. His attack was instantaneous, the Namekian had vanished though his kick connected to the jaw of Goku's father in a blink, crushing all of the warrior's resistance and whiting him out in a snap. Once the force of inertia recalled its purpose, the tailed warrior blasted off a great distance only to be stopped and pulled back in by his Namekian opponent grabbing his head with his elongated arm.
A pair of mocking kicks at the Saiyan's knees to torment him. A knee to his face to break him further, a rising knee to send him flying again. Piccolo vanished to follow after his airborne opponent, throwing swipes at him that were entirely driven by madness. Everything he wanted to tell and do to Son Goku but couldn't, for whatever reason, this invader would become his scapegoat. He would suffer in all the ways Goku had to but didn't yet.
A palm strike that cracked through the black and green armor that the enemy wore and send him crashing down, only for Piccolo to outrace his opponent to the surface of the water and lash at the Saiyan with his prolonged limb like a whip to confuse the kinetic forces wreaking havoc on the Saiyan's skeletal structure even more. Piccolo spread his arms aside, forming a golden explosive wave and the music of the enemy's scream of pain fueled his might as it was always meant to.
His voice… Even his voice sounded almost the same, had it not been for a more cool and reserved tone and manner of speaking. This indescribable swagger and aura of cool that Piccolo very much intended to smash. His enemy floated on the surface of the water with his eyes whited out, battered, and seemingly broken.
"You can't die, not yet, come on, your son could take way more punishment than this. Don't embarrass him by dying so soon," Piccolo taunted his enemy while cracking his knuckles. He could have kept punishing him, kept breaking the father of his nemesis until there was nothing but the dust of his bones left to blow and scatter over the waves of the ocean of the polar region. That was not how Piccolo wanted it. He wanted that man to think he had a shot, he wanted to see hope leave his eyes just like he wanted to see everything Goku held dead broken and reduced to rubble before he struck the finishing blow.
"Dying…?" the scarred warrior cackled. "Is that how you think I got those scars?"
"Well, I guess I was right to assume you and your spawn have this annoying feature in common…" Piccolo breathed out everything he had built up at once and prepared for another attack.
The reborn Demon King flicked his finger, a tiny spark lit up on the very edge of his claw, striking the Saiyan with some invisible and searing heat that shattered most of the armor covering his upper body and sent a wild gush of blood flowing from the wound. Even with his chest cavity cracked open and blood rushing from his mouth, this berserker seemed to be cackling like he was enjoying it. Not even demons born and bred for warfare were this mad…
"This feels wrong. As the lone survivor and king of the Evil Tribe, I should be marveling at this blood and massacre but you make it look like you're enjoying it. I am not here to provide you with entertainment, you know…" Piccolo appeared to join in on the Saiyan's joyous mood with a cackle of his own. "Something baffles me though, how come you fold and break so easily? You said something about knowing by "Battle Power" and yet you still confronted me. That means you believe yourself stronger than me, right? That doesn't make much sense, given the predicament you're in…"
"Stronger…?" Bardock smirked, his eyes betrayed the pain he was in though his mouth couldn't stop mocking the reincarnation of the Demon King with his smiling. "My own Battle Power is 18 000. I am well aware of the troublesome brawl I'm in, Namekian."
"W-What? Then why…?" Piccolo had sensed a surge of dread for the first time since picking up this unnaturally high Ki signature all the way off in the distance. "Is this some sort of distraction? Is Son Goku coming to save you while you're wearing me out with this pathetic attempt at my life? Are the two of you teaming up on me? I must say, it doesn't sound much like Son to me."
"Teaming up?" Bardock spat blood to the side and clenched his fist like he was offended or something. "No, this fight's all mine. If you must hear my reason for fighting you, it's because I crave the strength I'll get from this challenge. Every time a Saiyan gets injured in a fight they grow stronger, hell, some genetic freaks even continue to evolve all throughout a tough battle. I had always hoped for a decent challenge though I never thought that I'd get to punch a Namekian in the face. A tough battle like that will make me grow stronger than I anticipated even in my best-case scenarios."
"Heh… Just like your dumbass of a son, you've got a massive hole in your plan – to grow stronger you must survive the fight and I very much intend to sever your head clean off once I'm done breaking you," Piccolo mocked his opponent, preparing to bully him even further.
With a charging rush, Piccolo thrust his fist into the gut of his opponent, driving all air out from his already drowning in blood lungs before kicking him low into the side of his busted knees and throwing the enemy off-balance before elbowing him right in the face again. A flurry of stiff punches left the tailed warrior gurgling and grunting before Piccolo reached out for him again with his elongated arm, using them to claw at the enemy while he whipped them around like knives on a chain.
In his enemy's reeling, Piccolo found his opportunity to blast him away. "Get gone, Explosive Demon Wave!"
Piccolo had fully intended to never see Goku's father ever again after this attack, he didn't put all of his strength into it as it was meant to maim and reduce to rubble but while Saiyans were tougher than humans, they were still fragile beings, especially when they were so insignificant compared to Piccolo himself. It was only when an irritating, electrical hum met Piccolo's sensitive ears that he first started to cope with the shocker that his enemy wasn't just surviving, the scarred warrior was resisting the beating he was taking despite being hopelessly outmatched… Was he though?
What was this sudden burst of power that Piccolo was sensing? Did the Saiyan's strength just grow all of a sudden? The Saiyan's Ki had grown well past even his full power when the two had started their match. Right now, even in his injured state, the enemy was equal to Piccolo's full power.
"W-What's the meaning of this?" Piccolo demanded an answer from the Saiyan the defied all odds and logic to power through his attack and was staring at the Namekian like he was the last obstacle of a hungry man to reach a vendor. Though this particular being wasn't hungry for food, his was a craving for hardcore violence. "How can you grow in power in such a wounded state?"
"Grow in power? Don't be ridiculous. It's just that… Shugesh's reading has disappeared. I need to finish you off already and investigate," Bardock replied without any smirking or chuckling. This was a clear sign that the Saiyan was no longer viewing this battle as a surface to scratch his itching fists on but more as a nuisance that held him back from his real goals.
This madman had the power to just explode in might like that out of the blue without even knowing it. It wasn't him who needed to finish this fight off, it was Piccolo. Or else more of his pals might vanish from the face of the Earth and he'll continue to escalate in power until there will be nothing that Piccolo could do about it.
The only thing Piccolo could hope for now was that this borrowed, unnatural power wouldn't last or would blow up in the Saiyan's own face soon enough. Else there might not be any Earth left for Piccolo to establish his tyrannical reign over.