Goku and Piccolo took off at Bardock at the same time. For someone that started out as mortal enemies, the two seemed to work off of one another without any amateur flaws. Their movement and positioning perfectly balanced and complementing that of the other. Bardock's crystalline aura burst into motion. Goku's spirit faltered for just a second with the young Saiyan not being used to the enemy's Ki skyrocketing like that. Piccolo, meanwhile, was much more used to that already so he ended up being the one to press on the attack.
A furious flurry of strikes all of which Bardock had evaded with proper space control, bobbing and weaving aside and powering through the burning sensation in the Saiyan's ribs. Once Bardock moved outside of Piccolo's reach, the Namekian lengthened his limbs and began lashing them at his enemy though Bardock once again maneuvered around them. He possessed some semblance of skill in this manner of evasive action to the point where it seemed like he'd have been doing it often before. The sort of familiarity with evasiveness while using aerial agility that didn't require Bardock's full focus nor for his body to be intact.
Goku joined into the fray, flying in over Piccolo's head with a knee strike which Bardock felt forced to block. A grunt soaked with pain left Bardock's chest and the few trickles of blood running from his mouth intensified as this relentless brawl put the greatest strain on Bardock's damaged innards yet. Goku's father blocked both Goku's vaulting ax kick as well as his many attempts to jab at his father's openings. This was a different type of martial artist from those Goku had fought earlier.
Bardock hadn't been tutored in any sorts of martial arts but he knew how to fight. Not as well as Piccolo and Goku did but the vast practical experience in inflicting pain and practicing physical violence made Bardock so experienced in the ways of bruising and fisticuffs that the difference between the skill of a hardened martial artist that honed his skill his entire life and a would-be Demon King that inherited almost divine skill though still lacked a layer of cement over it and a seasoned warrior who had built his scrapping up from scratch was not great enough for it to decide the battle.
The Saiyan warrior let out a deafening roar, augmented by the Ki that formed a devastating bubble of destruction around him which expanded in a concussive shockwave which blasted both Goku and Piccolo apart and left them reeling to recover from the overwhelming blast of Bardock's rising power.
"What the heck's going on?" Goku grunted. "It's like he's growing stronger while fighting… It's just like Chayote said that one time."
"No. This isn't the first time he's done this. It never lasts long and it strains his own body because he's not used to wielding so much power. He's drawing power from desperation, he feels his comrades are in danger and that's what's letting him tap into all that power but it isn't his power, it doesn't last. Just weather it and press on when he's weakening again…" Piccolo scolded his temporary ally.
"Celipa, Tora, Borgos, Shugesh, Taro, and Leek… You guys are relying on me to pull you out and bring you home and that's exactly what I'm gonna do. And… Gine, I'll make sure to knock some sense into our boy and return home to you too," Bardock raised his bloody arm up and formed a blinding Ki blast that kept on growing in size and power with each name that Bardock had uttered. "It's been a blast, you Namekian fiend, but this is between me and Kakarot!"
The speed of Bardock's hearty attack seemed to skip beats and moments in time as the next thing anyone knew Bardock had enclosed his fist with his nurturing Ki blast still inside and socked Piccolo in the jaw having closed the distance between them in an instant. Rising over his head, Bardock shot his hand out and unleashed all of the fighting spirit he's been accumulating in the shape of a single, focused Ki wave that blinded and pushed Goku away with its intensity alone as Goku couldn't try and intercept it despite his intention of doing so.
With all sense being knocked right out from Piccolo with that one, crunchy cross, the Namekian couldn't recover in time to vanish or leave an afterimage and deal with the overwhelming attack. Bardock's spirited assault enveloped the Namekian and drilled through the arctic oceans, causing them to boil as it sent out a devastating flare off into the void of space. All of the energy had to escape somewhere and Bardock didn't mean to destroy Earth just yet, which meant that the energy had to flare up in the opposite direction.
When all the dazzling and shimmering of the blast had subsided, it was difficult to tell the heavens from dirt. Stones and gravel poured from the sky, the ground couldn't contain its trembling and wild whirlpools howled as the water could no longer sit still with all the devastation lingering in the region. There was no ice anywhere in the vicinity, just pillars of stone. Ones that still stayed stuck to the ground and others that fell from the sky. Krillin wriggled and swam around in mid-air, feeling confused and thinking himself plummeting to the ground when he opened his eyes when in fact it was the wreckage from up above that once more answered gravity's call and sought to join the formations and clusters that it was once part of.
"Piccolo!" Goku yelled out, looking around without keeping much attention to his father. Piccolo's Ki was still present, just a weak speck but if he was still conscious, it was more than likely that Piccolo would still insist on keeping the fight up. It was just the kind of gutsy guy that the reincarnated Demon King was.
"Krillin, don't let Piccolo fight anymore. If he takes any more attacks like this, he'll die and then the Dragon Balls will be gone for good," Goku turned to Krillin who looked freaked out after first hearing this request. "Don't worry, in his current state you can subdue him if you need to," Goku assured his friend right after noticing Krillin's qualms.
"Now it's just us, Kakarot…" Bardock panted, looking at his trembling hand. He couldn't sense just how much Ki he had lost after attacking in such a desperate way. His Ki sensory was more instinctual, it more related to being able to feel if his friends and comrades were in danger rather than being aware of the flow of battle for which he'd have still used a scouter.
"Enough!" Goku yelled out. "You're all worn out, I'll knock you flat if you don't leave Earth alone now!"
"That's my boy, fighting fiercely for what you want to protect, just like your old man…" Bardock snickered before putting up his hand and shaping another bright source of light. "I don't think I've got any more strength left to fight you, you're right. I've howled my heart and spirit out for my friends but I can't hear their voices anymore."
"You don't seem like a bad guy, leave Earth now. You've caused enough damage. If you keep trying to destroy Earth or hurt my family and friends, I won't hold back!" Goku warned.
"You're fierce but Earth's made you hesitant to use your power. I don't mean to hurt you or destroy your home, Kakarot, just remind you, teach you of who you really are. You're a Saiyan and every Saiyan needs to heed the call for a battle that roars in their heart and pumps through their veins. And right now there is no greater battle in the universe than that against King Vegeta and Frieza," Bardock let the Ki blast in his hand form and glisten with an even brighter, more refined light before it took a perfectly round shape and hovered over his hand, draining his strength instead of boosting it as most feats of Ki manipulation did.
"You're wrong! I'm Son Goku, I've been born a Saiyan but I grew up on Earth. I've got a family here and my friends and I don't want to fight any of your battles. If you were mean and got into a heap of trouble, you'll have to deal with that yourself, don't drag me or my family into it!" Goku appealed to his father's senses again but Bardock just chuckled.
"No matter how hard you resist your true nature, Kakarot, I might lack the strength to beat it into your thick skull, not unlike that of your old man's, but I have another way of reminding you just who you are – a Saiyan!" Bardock yelled out, throwing his Ki blast up into the air. Goku was prepared to smack this technique that his father had been preparing aside but he froze when Bardock chose to instead lob it over his head and off into the sky.
Bardock's Power Ball cut through the clouds, leaving a narrow hole where it had shot through. Once Bardock clenched his fist, spraying blood from his wounds in how much exertion he put into his collapsing body, the Power Ball blew up in size though it was no flickering destruction. Instead of a flash that blinked away, consumed and destroyed like most Ki blasts, this Power Ball lingered in the sky, spreading blinding light across the horizon.
"No! Don't look at it!" Krillin yelled out.
"Shut up, Earthling, Kakarot has no choice, he can't avoid the light of the Power Ball. This light will reveal his true form, free him from your mind-washing and weakness, and free the warrior that's still deep down there somewhere!" Bardock growled, clutching over his own abdomen in pain as his body was beginning to swell up in thickness and bulk greatly.
"No, you don't understand, Goku doesn't have a tail, he won't be able to transform!" Krillin yelled out.
"W-What!?" something snapped in Bardock's mind, his berserk eyes that saw only his humanity slipping away like vapor from his body, being replaced by something more primal and monstrous, his mind being corrupted and taken over by the monster that lurked inside each and every member of his species, one thing his eyes could not see, however, was his son's tail.
It did not matter though, with the budding fur all over Bardock's body and the drastic change of his facial structure to resemble something more basic and simian in appearance, it was far too late into the transformation process to halt what Bardock had done. Even if his body had been driven to the edge where a strong blow could have settled the fight then and there, this new transformation into the Great Ape had summoned primeval strength from within Bardock's own subconscious and his very genetic structure, causing what little battle power he still maintained to boost up tenfold.
Even in his battered and bruised shape, Bardock was several times more powerful and vastly more dangerous than he'd have been in perfect health and full power in his base form.
"The… The Great Ape monster…" Goku shook in place, he wasn't sure what he was fighting anymore. Was it his own father still or was it the Great Ape monster that showed up during the full moon and rampaged across the world? The berserk creature that smashed his own grandfather all those years ago.
None of Goku's words or actions reached the wild beast as Bardock, now in his Great Ape form, just pounded his chest and roared out. Flexing out and working on overpowering the pain that littered his monstrous body with sheer, wild madness alone. It was that very pain that drove the beast to grab onto its savage fury even further and sent it into thrashing madness.
Bardock's backhanded swipe that should have smacked Goku aside only swung through thin air as Goku had lit up in Hot-Red Mode for just a moment and took off to Krillin and outside the rampaging beast's view. Driven mad by the absence of a visible enemy to smash and still moments away from sniffing out the meek trio of an Earthling, a Namekian and a Saiyan cowering before him down below, the Great Ape snagged a crashing boulder from mid-air and smashed it over its head before roaring out as he aimed for his booming voice to crack the planet all by itself.
"This is crazy, you've got to leave and take Piccolo with you!" Goku grabbed Krillin by his shoulders and shook his friend. The petrified look on Goku's face made Krillin skip the phase where he faltered and questioned his friend's decision. He stared back for a short while with a wavering gaze but he lifted off with Piccolo hanging over his shoulder.
"Don't you dare!" Piccolo hissed. "The Mafuba… I can still… Seal the beast…"
"Don't argue with me, Piccolo!" Goku lashed out. "If you die, the Dragon Balls will be gone. We don't yet know how many people the Saiyans have killed so far. We don't know how badly they'll mess up the Earth and it won't be easy to stop the Great Ape monster either. With your damaged body – you'll die for sure sealing this guy."
"Tsk… Your father was right, Son… You might not have become… An ape like him but… You're still just being greedy and you just… Want to fight him all on your own," Piccolo turned his spiteful eyes up and directed them to Goku.
"Get Piccolo away from here," Goku turned his back to Piccolo after noticing the beast beginning to seek for its next prey again. There simply was no time to argue with him with the Great Ape seeking a scapegoat to vent its savage nature onto with the entire planet possibly becoming its target if it couldn't find someone sturdy to knock around.
Krillin pushed Piccolo off his side and punched at the Namekian's gut, forcing the reincarnation of the Demon King to pass out. In his weakened state, it was possible for Krillin to deal such a blow to the Namekian and the Earthling didn't want the crafty entity that hosted both the Demon King Piccolo and Kami inside it to try anything and sabotage Goku's choice to confront his transformed father alone as well as deactivate the Dragon Balls.
Goku nodded in approval and took off, distracting the Great Ape by blasting it with a barrage of Ki blasts from its side, forcing the monster to not respond in kind. Krillin took Piccolo's unconscious body off the rough wreckage and took off. He was strong himself, who knew, maybe together he and Goku would stand a better shot against the Great Ape though not even their combined Ki, even if they were multiplied a few times both together, they wouldn't have matched that of the beast.
The Dragon Team needed Piccolo safe and away from the battlefield and Krillin was a capable body that could save this key figure in the plans to come. He might have been strong, he might have still been able to become stronger using the Hot-Red Mode but it didn't matter. Just being a skilled martial artist, an all-around powerful and crafty guy didn't matter at this time. Krillin kept convincing himself of that as he withdrew from the battlefield with Piccolo's unconscious body hanging over him.
"Guys!" a staticy and muddled transmission broke through. "I'm almost there… How's the battle going?"
Bulma swam through handfuls of leftover junk and plowed through staff, robotic and human alike to dash to her laboratory and run-up to the microphone. She hadn't received as much as a single transmission from Chayote all this time to the point where she had forgotten that the Saiyan existed. She's been getting worried and that was all that she was good for.
"Chayote, Chayote, is that you!? Oh, God, Chayote… I've been so worried, everyone's doing their best, I've no way of tracking the battle so… Upa came down to Capsule Corp asking how the Great Apes worked and he tried calming me down but… There was this huge cataclysmic quake that resonated throughout the whole planet and the media is in a fritz now! You said you were near, how did you get here so fast!?" Bulma cried out onto the communication link. She was struggling with both tears of joy and worry.
"I've used the wormhole map of Frieza Planet No. 79 to skip through massive patches of space while bending space-time around my ship to speed it up during long stretches of travel. I'll be there in more than a day."
"W-Wait… You're still over a day away?" Bulma wanted to freak out and yell like she used to but she couldn't find the strength and confidence to do so. For whatever reason, feeling the ground shaking underneath her feet and electricity switching on and off made her feel so powerless and inconsequential in the face of something that could have just blinked out the entire planet without anything that she could do about it, without Bulma even knowing until she'd get blinked out by superheated space gas and wake up in the Otherworld.
"Excuse me, are we just going to ignore the part where I'm literally abusing curvatures in space-time to burrow closer to Earth sooner?" Chayote grumbled. "Also, bending the fabric of space-time around a ship traveling as fast as this one is no small feat, even after I arrive I'll need a breather and maybe a Senzu…"
"Okay, okay… Just… Hurry up, please. I've got a really bad feeling about all of this," Bulma pleaded.
This was just what Chayote needed right now. She had never heard that blue-haired hag pleading or begging for help like that. She was oftentimes mad and sometimes got pretty despicable but this type of attitude… Just great, now Chayote would feel all guilty if she didn't switch her hustle up to eleven and got there in time for a heroic rescue.
Honestly, she should have just stayed in Babaria and wrestled Babarians trying to usurp her throne in peace. She was too far away, to begin with. Bulma contacted her with this impossible request, she was way out of her depth to rely on Chayote to pull them out…
"Okay, time for whining is over…" Chayote sighed. She closed her eyes and focused on the task of scoping the whizzing space-time around her vessel, trying to squeeze it using nothing but her focus and her Ki at the other end, like a tube of toothpaste to hurry and push herself toward Earth even faster.
"Attention, attention, two vessels within radar's range," the ship's AI shrieked out, disrupting Chayote's focus.
"I'm trying to concentrate here!" Chayote growled.
"You asked me to inform you about all vessels present in your immediate vicinity. Shall I stop doing that from now on?" the ship's AI brought up a valid point which was one of its less fascinating features. It was like arguing with Bulma who was an actual genius-scientist.
"Are they faster vessels than us?" Chayote sighed.
"They are Attack Balls, at our current speed we outperform them by 45%, without factoring in any possible wormhole shortcuts," the ship's AI replied.
"Attack Balls? Reinforcements, maybe scouts? Could this be the reason behind the bad feeling Bulma has? Either way, at this pace they'll lag behind us by a decent chunk, let's just focus on getting to Earth sooner," Chayote closed her eyes again, choosing to focus on quenching the nagging feeling of guilt in her gut by doing everything in her power to get to Earth faster.
At this point, this was uncharted territory. Nobody had a vision on Korin Tower that went beyond this point, this was the moment that Chayote dreaded and tried to avoid – Goku's father finding Earth and confronting his son. Though at the time it was because she didn't think they'd be able to handle it or the attention from the Frieza Army, after her time training in space for seven whole years, she was certain that she'd be able to cause enough trouble for the space tyrant's goons if they ever snooped their noses anywhere near this part of the galaxy.
"Just a little bit longer, you guys…" Chayote mumbled under her nose. These past couple of days were troublesome, almost no rest and constant focus, constant thoughts on how to skip some more space, and win more time. All she had to do was survive one more day of this, then she'd get to kick the ass of Goku's father in return for all that trouble.