A tiny droplet of blood ran down Vegeta's forehead and disappeared inside his black eyebrows. The prince squinted his right eye a dash from one of few minor injuries that he had sustained in his playful scuffle with Chayote but otherwise kept his attention fixated on the bothersome Namekian that intruded his celebratory eradication of Earth's population.

"A Namekian, huh? You wouldn't happen to be the weapon that Bardock and his crew counted on to wipe my father and the Saiyan race out, would you?" Vegeta scowled at the green-skin with a hint of mockery to his voice.

"Bardock? You mean Son Goku's father? No, I'd have killed him if I found him. Did you by any chance do that already?" Piccolo wondered with a much cooler head than his Saiyan opponent. He had no reason to lose his cool, after all, he had all the winning cards as his Ki had a tiny edge over his worn-out opponent and the self-proclaimed demon had confidence in his superior skill.

"That bothersome wench interfered. Then you messed with my plan to have her murder all of her Earthling friends herself, what an irritating bunch you guys turned out to be!" Vegeta clenched his fists as the rows of his teeth ground against one another to the point where one would not have been foolish to assume that chips of the Saiyan's pearly-whites would begin shooting out in all directions soon enough.

"Sorry about that, it's just that I've settled on ruling this planet myself so you wiping it out would be a massive inconvenience for me…" Piccolo cracked his knuckles and spun his head around to stretch his neck out before taking a fighting stance.

"Hmph… A mere Namekian has no hope against a Saiyan elite!" Vegeta mocked Piccolo's determination to fight it out and took his own fighting stance.

The two fighters spent a few moments in silent consideration. They allowed the stormy winds to shake up the black sky and rattle the uneasy ocean. The clouds furled up in the sky, forming layers of choking gloom of toxic aggression and lightning bolts left bright lashes all around the pair. It was once one of the nearby mountains cracked in two from the intense air pressure and collapsed into the ocean that the pair of fighters vanished in a snap and charged at one another.

The two clashed with matching elbow strikes, pushing against one another for a short time. A stray lightning bolt threatened to electrocute the pair of floating fighters but the intense shockwave from their clash dissolved the bolt halfway and reduced it to harmless sparks that filled the air with static electricity which in no way impacted the negative polarity present between the two bruisers determined to punch one another until the other stopped moving.

After a relentless and swift exchange of blows, it was Vegeta's deceitful sweep that tripped Piccolo and made him swing in an uncontrollable spin before the Saiyan royalty. Vegeta proceeded to smack the spinning Namekian with the back of his hand, strengthening his strike with his entire body as he took a stalwart step forward and drew strength from the pillow of air he had formed from his Ki to remain afloat in the air.

Utilizing the same momentum, Vegeta spun around again with a knife-edge chop to the front of Piccolo's throat and then repeated the choking attack a couple of times as he ascended together with the opponent who suffered his beatdown. The beady eyes were quick to return to Piccolo's whited out eyes, Vegeta might have underestimated the Namekian physiology and its differences from what he was used to a tiny bit. The prince recovered by blocking Piccolo's counterattacks and kneeing the Namekian in the stomach, proceeding to pursue his airborne opponent after a strong cross strike with his fist. The Saiyan kicked his opponent even higher up in the air before vanishing up above his position and slamming him down into the ocean from above.

"So… You've chosen this planet to be your grave, Namekian?" Vegeta beamed a cocky smile down at his submerged enemy as a pair of powerful, flashing radiances formed in his hands. The Saiyan prince thrust his open palms, unleashing a hail of Ki blasts that bombed the underwater area and would have done a number on anyone trying to conceal themselves down there. After he was done, Vegeta crossed his arms and marveled at the rising domes of light that erupted into beaming pillars of light in their detonation.

An elongated arm emerged from underwater looking to grab Vegeta by his head and pull him down into the raging seas but the Saiyan avoided the arm from up above by moving backward. Much to his entertainment, the arm continued to pursue him but Vegeta managed to outrace its expansion before he saw the limit to how long it could expand and grabbed hold of Piccolo's wrist, pulling on it and forcing the arm's owner to snap back to his elongated limb and not the other way around.

Once Piccolo emerged and snapped his arm back to his body in a reversed retraction, Vegeta delivered a crushing blow to the Namekian's abdomen which forced a mouthful of slobber out of Piccolo's mouth and forced the Namekian to wheeze for oxygen as he wriggled in pain before the Saiyan royalty. Vegeta kicked Piccolo on the left side of his neck after dashing up a tiny bit and then smashed his face in with an uppercut before delivering a flurry of blows from each side of Piccolo's head, then he drove his head into Piccolo's chest, sending the Namekian flying.

Piccolo halted his retreat and wiped a trace of blood off of his lip, smirking at the huffing Saiyan. It was true that Vegeta's natural talent for combat had caught him by surprise but it also showed him a few things, namely that Chayote had forced Vegeta into a state where he lost more Ki by attacking his opponent and further draining his own stamina than getting hit himself. The Saiyan was pushing his body beyond its limits and, luckily for Piccolo, he wasn't the type of guy to admit that he was doing so in front of his opponent.

"Getting winded?" Piccolo mocked his opponent.

"Cocky bastard!" Vegeta ground his teeth, "Talk shit when you land one hit on me!"

Just as Piccolo prepared to trade more blows with his opponent, Vegeta vanished away. Piccolo had expected the enemy to try and relocate the fight to a different field, to try and flee the location and preserve his life or to try and execute one of the few opponents that Vegeta had already beaten to lash out his frustrations at them instead. What Piccolo did not expect was Vegeta appearing before him and pressing his hands right up to Piccolo's chest with a rich smile.

"What is it that you like to say? "Get gone"?" Vegeta mocked the Saiyan as he fired a point-blank Ki burst from both of his hands, enveloping the Namekian in his attack and blasting him away only to crash into the water with trails of smoke smoldering off of the dazed green-skin.

Vegeta floated in mid-air, his body hunched as it was becoming difficult to keep his body straight and tense. The head of the Saiyan prince bobbed downward as drawing enough breath to satiate his yearning for battle was becoming impossible and no matter how much time he took to catch his breath or how much effort he spent to gain precious moments to breathe properly, it just wasn't enough. Piccolo appeared from underwater with half of his purple gi in tatters.

"That wasn't half bad…" Piccolo admitted, patting his bruised chest.

"So, is this what your race has been up to since the Cataclysm?" Vegeta muttered in a lousy mood – his signature mood. "Sending your young across different planets to conquer them, you know, that's kind of our deal. If you plan on stepping out of line, it will be up to us to show you Namekians that the universe is only big enough for one race of conquering warriors!"

"Don't ask me about my planet or my people, I've never been on Namek and I've only accepted that I'm an alien yesterday," Piccolo stretched his aching body out. "I hope there won't be any hard feelings when I bust your bubble of grandeur here."

Without waiting for a response, Piccolo clenched his arms by his side. A malicious, scarlet gleam flared up in his eyes as Vegeta felt a tightening grip around his every muscle and realized that he was locked into place, unable to move. The Namekian reached out for his paralyzed opponent with his elongated arm and pulled him in for a devastating blow to Vegeta's gut with his free arm. After a flurry of kicks, Piccolo flipped backward, kicking his opponent away after hitting Vegeta in the chin with both of his feet as he did so.

Pursuing his opponent, Piccolo vanished and appeared with a powerful cross to Vegeta's gut once more, knocking all semblance of sense and control over his body that the Saiyan prince might have regained out of him again. Utilizing his opening, the Namekian kneed Vegeta in the face and sent him flying with a thrusting kick to his mid-section before using his elongated arm to pull Vegeta back in after grabbing hold of his leg and chopping him away, repaying the choking debt he had to the Saiyan prince with a knife-edge chop to Vegeta's throat of his own.

Vegeta couldn't just burst out from the water like he wanted to. Instead, the Saiyan prince dragged his breathless body out into the shore of a nearby sandy island and struggled to return to fighting shape. He had been struggling to breathe properly for a while and Piccolo had just nearly crippled him by smashing his throat in and preventing any air whatsoever from entering his airway. The ruthless Namekian charged in to utilize this occasion but Vegeta just took a mad dash into the skies, his vision fading and the Saiyan catching himself almost dozing off from the shortness of breath.

Piccolo snapped his neck to look up. The swelling of Vegeta's Ki threw the Namekian into a state of panic as Vegeta's Ki just exploded with a massive boost and the black clouds suddenly changed color as a shade of fuchsia began dominating the entire atmosphere while Vegeta prepared his world-shaking preparation for his mightiest Super Galick Gun.

"The fool is going to blow the Earth up several times over!" Piccolo hissed to himself as he hunched himself in intense concentration of his own Ki, allowing himself the luxury to channel his Ki the right way in preparation for his response. Malicious, emerald pulses of energy formed around the Namekian's clenched fists as the entire, sinking shore that he took platform on got blown away by the burst of Piccolo's Ki. The Namekian extended his arm out and grabbed hold of his wrist.

Even if Vegeta's blast ends up more powerful, channeling more of his slightly lesser Ki than Piccolo's blast, at least the Explosive Demon Wave would end up sapping some strength away from the blast and preventing the Saiyan prince of destroying the entire planet and sending its showering space dust blasting away to pelt at the other planets of the solar system. By taking the brunt of the blast himself, Piccolo would be saving the planet that was his by birthright.

As a massive, fuchsia-colored wave of Ki emerged from above the clouds and threatened to swallow up the entire region in its devastating pulse, penetrating all the way to the Earth's core and then obliterate through it like it was just rags as it beamed off into space, blasting to oblivion every space body it encountered until its massive strength ran out of juice, Piccolo extended his hand and let out all of the Ki that he had managed to muster up in that time focused into one attack.

It was Vegeta's mightiest Super Galick Gun against Piccolo's Explosive Demon Wave.

The two blasts struggled against one another for a brief moment but Piccolo's fears began ringing close to the truth. Vegeta's blast began devouring his own, relaying that this technique truly did channel more of Vegeta's slightly lower Ki than Piccolo's own Ki wave. The Namekian struggled against the inevitable fate but in the current state of things, he could only observe and delay when the Super Galick Gun would devour him whole and eat up his Explosive Demon Wave entirely.

"Damn it…!" Piccolo cursed as the blinding fuchsia light began coming closer and closer to where he could no longer accurately tell just how much of his own blast remained to oppose obliteration at the hands of Vegeta. If only he had an attack that channeled more of his Ki, something stronger than Vegeta's own technique…

Piccolo's aura turned bright turquoise as it began taking the shape of a floaty humanoid behind him. One with whited out eyes and oval-shaped head. Piccolo couldn't spare a second to look at whatever was happening with his desperate Ki as he was too invested in not surrendering in his vain struggle but he could feel as if though that same Ki began seeping back into him, inspiring clarity in his own mind. With that unison and control over his own Ki came an idea that required immediate attempt at the realization and just a little bit of luck to work.

"Tri-Form!" Piccolo chanted out as a golden outline beamed over his body that would have been impossible to tell due to the blinding light show all around him. In a flash of light, two more identical copies of Piccolo appeared behind him and extended their hands outward, forming their own Explosive Demon Waves and firing them alongside the dwindling original.

Vegeta lacked the breath to express his shock at the fact that his Ki wave began actually shrinking down and being pushed back at him. Just when he thought he had the Namekian, somehow, he had managed to channel more of his energy into the blast and drive it back home bit by bit. Now it was Vegeta who was in an identical situation to that in which Piccolo just was.

While Piccolo split his own Ki into three to form the copies, he managed to compensate for the fact that his Explosive Demon Waves only channeled a smaller fraction of his Ki than Vegeta did with his technique by firing three Explosive Demon Waves at once, even if the split ones were much weaker than the original, the sum of them managed to join into something that was just enough to push the blast back to the center of the clash and begin to push the epicenter of the clash back to Vegeta's direction.

With one final push, emphasized with the newly born desire to protect Earth, Piccolo roared out and finished the struggle by taking it back to his breathless opponent and blasting him away with it. As the fuchsia-colored chaos beamed off into the upper layers of the atmosphere, Piccolo's hands fell limp by his side as the Namekian fell on his knee, seeing sweat dripping from his forehead. He looked down at his shaking hands and breathed out a huff of relief, finding it much harder to fill his own lungs after firing his most powerful Ki wave three times just now.

"Tsk… What a sturdy son of a bitch!" Piccolo hissed as he turned his head up, his neck burnt with pent up debility as he did so. He could still sense Vegeta's Ki up above. The Saiyan prince must have somehow managed to slip off of the one-way ride to space and beyond and managed to stay afloat and alive up there but he hesitated to rejoin the battle. Vegeta's Ki had taken a mean number. In his current condition, any following blows even from a weaker opponent might have been fatal but Piccolo also lacked the strength needed to dash up there and finish the job.

With his arm shaking, Piccolo mustered up the strength to extend his hand aiming upward. He most likely would have missed any precision demanding shots but maybe his Chasing Bullet would have been just what the situation needed.

"Hey, Piccolo! I'd appreciate if you didn't kill the guy!" a voice rung in Piccolo's head, throwing him off-balance and off-aim. It was a powerful telepathic signal broadcasting an irritating, high-pitched, and energetic voice. The voice that Piccolo knew and hated more than anything.

"Son! Are you haunting me beyond the grave, you bastard!?" Piccolo shouted out into the sky.

"Teehee… I didn't think you'd hear me. I'm at this King Kai's place and he said that I can talk to the living by pressing my hand on his back. Between just you and me, I think he just likes back rubs…" Goku's voice continued to talk rubbish when every second seemed to count. For all Piccolo knew the blasted Saiyans, Vegeta's Ki might have exploded into unforeseen might just like Bardock's did earlier.

"You do realize I'm right here, Goku!?" another, lower-pitched, buzzing voice joined in on the frequency. It must have been that King Kai to which Goku referred to who channeled Goku's voice telepathically throughout the universe.

Piccolo turned his beady eyes to the west. He saw a beaming comet of white moving in on his direction. His sensitive ears could hear a mechanical hum and the popping of spaceship fuel being burnt in its engine. It could have only been the spacecraft in which Vegeta arrived on. The cowardly Saiyan prince planned to run away with his literal tail tug between his legs.

"Hurry up, Son, I don't have much time here. This trash is gonna run away and I mean to make him get gone! If you have a case to make, do so now!" Piccolo hurried his nemesis to speak quickly or get out of his way.

"Oh… We've been following the events down on Earth from here and… This Vegeta guy seems like a crazy-strong fighter. I kind of wanna go to space and fight him someday. Seeing those Saiyans pop out of nowhere from space really got my blood boiling and now I want to take Chayote up on her offer and go off to space to fight all of those strong guys out there!" Goku explained himself.

"Is that all!? Is that the reason you've stopped my hand? That's literally the most stupid reason I've ever heard, befitting a fool such as yourself, of course. I don't know what I expected from an imbecile like you! Now shut up and enjoy the fireworks!" Piccolo roared out as he fired a round Ki blast which automatically homed in on the aircraft that stopped over his head and corrected Piccolo's shaky aim from his worn-out arm by itself.

The Saiyan Attack Ball blasted off into space before the homing ball of light could reach and blow it up, finishing the Saiyan prince once and for all. Piccolo's mouth gapped ajar for a few seconds before he let out an infuriated roar into the sky.

"You fool, don't you realize what you just did by delaying me!?" Piccolo yelled out, wondering if Goku was still listening.

"Oh, so Vegeta escaped then? That's great…" Goku snickered.

"What's so great about it, you nincompoop!? He's a Saiyan, just like you! Probably even way worse seeing how he classified himself as an elite. He'll recover from these injuries and become a threat to not only our planet but the entire universe!" Piccolo tried scolding his nemesis in a way that even his thick head could understand but it didn't seem like Goku quite cared.

"Oh, I didn't know you cared so much about protecting Earth, that's good to hear. Anyway, I guess we'll have to work really hard to stop that from happening, anyway, King Kai's gesturing that it's his nap time soon so I guess I've got to go, see you guys when Gohan's done with his training, bye!" Goku said his farewells and the ambiance of the restless storm took over from there.

"Sooonnn!" Piccolo yelled out into the sky as if trying to reach his dim-witted rival all the way in the Otherworld with just his voice but soon collapsed from the wear of this tiring battle.

And to think that the humans used to call him a villain and a demon…