Fight, Son Goku! Vegeta Battles Against a True Hero!
The ground shook with every impact. Gusts of wind buffeted the baked desert ground until cyclones were whipped into life by the furious exchange of strikes. Every blow carried the sound of a thunderclap and errant ki attacks blasted the ground into glass where they hit. For the three remaining fighters, it was like watching a roiling thunderstorm in the distance. Every impact flashed through their ki senses like a lightning bolt as they stood transfixed despite Goku's warnings. Gohan covered his mouth with both balled hands while he watched with rapt attention.
'You can do it, mama,' he thought. 'You have to!'
OoOoOoO
Goku pushed off a spire of rock and launched herself back at Vegeta, colliding with him in midair in a furious exchange of punches and kicks. Vegeta was, she had to admit, an incredibly talented fighter! She hadn't fought anyone in almost a year so this was exciting! Goku went for a straight jab but Vegeta deflected with his palm before grabbing both sides of Goku's head and smashing his forehead into hers which he followed up with a knee to the gut and a backfist that sent her spiraling down to the ground. She managed to right herself and landed on her feet as Vegeta descended casually down to meet her. Goku was already panting while Vegeta's breathing was completely even. This, Goku realized, was a problem. He was already stronger and faster than her by a lot.
Vegeta smirked and beckoned for her to continue. "Come on, then," he taunted. "Make me try." Goku smirked back and balled her fists.
"Kaiouken!" she cried as a red aura wrapped around her body and her power level spiked. For half a second, Vegeta's surprised expression seemed to imply that he was wondering just what the hell that meant. Before he could put voice to his expression, however, his face was quickly obscured by Goku's fist. The Saiyan King hurtled off in a blue-yellow streak and smashed through several rocky pillars as Goku followed after him in a red blur, pinballing him around with punches and kicks before driving an elbow into the small of his back that sent him careening end-over-end into the sky. She followed him up and sent him hurtling down to the ground with a crescent kick, the heel of her foot smashing him down to shatter the hard earth. Goku took a few seconds to catch her breath and wiped her brow with a smile. She wondered if he still felt like talking big now.
Vegeta let out a burst of purple Battle Power to push off the debris he was buried under and then groaned before he picked himself up out of the crater he'd created. He rubbed his neck as he looked up at the red dot in the sky that was Kakarot quizzically. That was… not bad. He smirked to himself and rocketed up to meet her, surrounded by his purple Battle Aura. Perhaps she was worth something after all.
They met again in a collision that sent sparks of ki through the air. They bounced away and struck again and again as the sky flashed red and purple with each impact. Now, however, Goku was beginning to notice a problem. Not a new problem, though. The same one as before. Even with Kaiouken, Vegeta was still faster than her and he was hitting her more often than she was hitting him. Even though she was getting hits in, like the twisting kick she drove into the side of his head, she could tell that she'd have to step it up if she wanted to win.
Vegeta grinned as he drove Kakarot away with an axehandle blow and crossed his arms over his chest.
"It seems as if you're at your limit," Vegeta said mockingly. "In that case, let me show you what true power looks like. This is the power of a super-elite, Kakarot!" Vegeta threw his arms out and lightning crackled across his body in surges of purple energy. He threw back his head and roared. Goku brought up her arms to cover her face as wind whipped up like a hurricane from Vegeta's rising power.
Before Goku could make her move, Vegeta was on her in a flash and hammering her with fists and knees. She threw out a kick but Vegeta effortlessly dodged it and grabbed her by the neck. He dragged Goku across the ground before throwing her up into the air and firing off a ki blast that she barely managed to dodge. This was bad.
OoOoOoO
Kaiou monitored the battle from Otherworld with his godly perceptions and frowned as his antennae dipped and bobbed. If he had learned anything from the past seven months, it was that Goku was going to take some incredibly stupid risk that could very nearly get everyone killed.
"Careful, Goku," he muttered. "Don't overexert yourself! Times two is your maximum but you've still got the Genki Dama!" Of course, the way the fight was going now, what choice did she have but to go to times three? He shivered when he felt the presence of the Kaioushin passing through his realm and, given the stress he was under, he spun around and snapped at… nothing. "Y'know," he screamed, "If you're gonna watch, the least you could do is create a physical presence in my dimension so that I'm not so creeped out!" Then Kaiou realized he had just screamed at the Kaioushin and his face went pale. "Uh… n-never mind."
OoOoOoO
Vegeta had well and truly regained the advantage by this point with one arm wrapped around Kakarot's neck as he smashed his knees into her face again and again. He'd adjusted to the change in Kakarot's battle power and now was back in control. The fact that he was going to win this fight was so patently obvious that Vegeta didn't even notice when the wench jabbed a thumb into his eye. Worse still, he felt her bite down on his arm when he was blinded and cried out in pain when she actually bit down hard enough to break the skin. The next thing Vegeta knew, she had smashed the point of her elbow just behind his jaw and, for one time far too many today, Vegeta was sent down to the ground again. He was in a red fury as he picked himself up but forced himself to stay calm. She'd not done any real damage, he had to remind himself. Just a scrape or a scratch. He looked down at the angry red imprint of her teeth on the bare skin of his forearm and smirked. He liked that she had a bit of fight in her.
Goku groaned and spat out the piece of blue fabric in her mouth. She made a face and spat again. That was awful! Whatever Vegeta's outfit was made out of (it kinda seemed like rubber?), it was obvious that he didn't wash it enough. Worse still, she didn't like fighting dirty but it was what she needed to do at this point. At least it had bought her a few seconds breathing time and as she watched Vegeta flying towards her, she knew this was her best shot.
"Come on, Kakarot," Vegeta called up as he got closer, "If you surrender now I shall be gentle when–"
"Kaiouken times three!"
"Now what does that–" Vegeta started to ask before he was rudely interrupted by Goku driving both of her feet into his face. She fired two ki blasts into the air from her hands to rocket them down to the ground even faster, Vegeta's head making a crater as her feet drove him into the dirt. She flipped off of him and rebounded off a boulder (that exploded from the force of her pushing off) to continue her assault as Vegeta got to his feet. She hit Vegeta with an uppercut that had comparable force to a meteor strike to send him up into the air and followed up immediately with a flash kick that sent him up even higher. The blue sky turned dark and the stars became visible as Goku hit Vegeta with strike after strike, lifting him into the upper atmosphere. Just before their momentum pulled them out of Earth's gravity, Goku unleashed a series of rapid-fire body punches and followed Vegeta the whole way back down to Earth as his armor chipped and cracked and flew apart under the assault. Their bodies burned orange with the heat of reentry and Goku finished her attack by grabbing Vegeta by the waist and flinging him down into the ground with enough force to create a crater that was nearly a mile wide. The tectonic impact would later be recorded by Royal Scientists as a 10.5, the largest in recorded history up to that point.
Goku sat on the edge of the crater and powered down, catching her breath. Her shirt had burned up on the way down but she didn't really care. That, she hoped, would be the end of it. Her muscles were on fire! Kaiouken times three really hurt.
OoOoOoO
The massive quakes from Vegeta's impact made skyscrapers wobble and set off car alarms across half the continent. It also knocked almost the entire planet's population off their feet, including Suno, Krillin, and Gohan. As they picked themselves up, Krillin gave voice to what they were all thinking.
"D'you think that did it?" he muttered.
"I really hope so," Suno replied despite being unsure. This sudden stillness didn't feel like the end. It felt like the calm in a blizzard before things really kicked up. Everyone was so transfixed on the battle in the distance and what might happen next that no one, not even Gohan, noticed a furry brown tail slip up through the hem of the back of Gohan's pants.
OoOoOoO
Vegeta groaned under a pile of rubble that had once been a mountain and blinked the stars out of his vision as his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. What… just… happened? On some level he knew what had happened but he also knew that it hadn't happened. She had been too fast for him to block any of her attacks, had hit too hard for him to recover or counter, but that didn't mean… didn't mean…
"She is stronger than me," Vegeta growled in equal measures of horror and rage. He hacked up a mouthful of blood onto his chest and his fury grew as he reached a trembling hand up to his temple and his fingertips came away bloody. He was bleeding. She had made him bleed. This was no longer amusing. This was no longer a game. Vegeta let out a strangled screech through clenched teeth as something in his brain… snapped.
OoOoOoO
Goku was just about to start walking down to see if Vegeta had been knocked out when a massive blast of purple ki vaporized the rubble he had been buried under while he let out a bloodcurdling scream. Vegeta looked up at Goku and she looked down at him. Both were bare from the waist up and covered in cuts, burns, blood, and bruises. Goku was cautious and already slipping back into her guard while Vegeta was wide-eyed and practically foaming at the mouth. He was breathing shallow breaths through his mouth and looked positively feral as he jabbed a finger up at Goku.
"I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS!" he screamed as spit flew everywhere. "I am Vegeta! I am the greatest warrior in the universe! I am the strongest Saiyan ever born! I will not be bloodied, I will not be beaten, I will not be surpassed by a discarded piece of gutter trash like you, you insolent, contemptuous whore!" His face turned red with rage before his purple battle aura flared up around him. "We shall see how you deal with this next attack, Kakarot! If I hit you, you shall die but if you dodge, it will destroy the planet and then you shall die!"
"But… won't that kill you, too?" Goku asked nervously while she hoped in the back of her mind that he was bluffing.
"At this point," Vegeta shot back, "I really don't give a FUCK!" He threw out both fists and rocketed off into the sky with enough force to create a sonic boom, looking for all the world like a shooting star going in reverse before he spun around to look down on Kakarot again. "Take this!" He shouted down as he brought his hands to his side. Tendrils of purple energy snaked off of Vegeta's body like lightning as he brought his full terrible power to bear.
"Oh jeez," Goku muttered in shock. "He's not bluffing!" Then she gritted her teeth and squatted low as she brought her hands to her sides. "Kaiouken times three!" She could feel her muscles shrieking in protest as the red aura flared around her while she pivoted her body and cupped both hands to one side. "Kaaaa… meeee…"
'Strange,' Vegeta thought as he looked down at Kakarot, his Saiyan eyes able to pick out her movements from far below. 'Those movements of hers look not unlike my Galick Gun.' He pushed the thought away as mere coincidence. "Galick Gun…"
"Haaaa… meeee…"
"FIRE!"
"HAAAA!"
The two beams raced to meet one another with blue and purple colliding a brilliant and terrifying explosion of light. Would-be video celebrities all across the continent fought to get the best possible shot of the phenomenon on their phones while scientists and royal parliament members panicked as the struggling beams outshone the light of the sun itself.
"That," Krillin murmured in shock, "Looks pretty serious." Suno nodded wordlessly. Whoever won this struggle, some part of her knew, would be the one who won the fight.
OoOoOoO
Goku felt the ground crack and fall apart under her feet as she struggled and pushed back against Vegeta's attack. Even as she fought, however, she could feel the other blast bearing down on her. Over the cacophony of clashing energies, Goku could hear Vegeta's laughter.
"You see, Kakarot?" he called down. "You could never defeat me! I am your superior! You cannot win! Now die with this planet you love!" Goku ground her teeth and pushed back for all she was worth. This might kill her, she knew, but better for her to die again than for the planet to be destroyed!
"I'll show you what I can't do," she muttered. "Come on, body! Just hold out a little bit longer!" Then she threw back her head and screamed, "Kaiouken times four!" Her aura flared up again and her ki spiked as the Kamehameha surged forward and started to overwhelm the Galick Gun. Vegeta's eyes went wide with panic and pushed forward frantically as the blue-white light rushed up to meet him.
"Impossible," Vegeta gasped as he struggled, "Impossible! I am Vegeta! I am Vegeta! I am Vegetaaaaaaa–!" His screams trailed off as the Kamehameha overwhelmed him and blasted him high up into the sky.
Goku quickly powered down and let her arms fall limply at her sides and gasped for breath. She'd done it! It felt like her muscles were ripping apart and she could feel her heart pounding thunderously in her chest but she had done it!
...Hadn't she?
OoOoOoO
The three warriors watched the Kamehameha blast off into the sky and Krillin let out a low, impressed whistle. That was definitely something.
"Do you think mama's okay?" Gohan asked. He could sense her ki but it felt like she was in pain.
"We'd better go check on her," Suno said and the three began to fly off. Krillin couldn't let go of the cold feeling in the pit of his belly that somehow, someway, things were only about to get worse.
OoOoOoO
Vegeta finally stopped screaming once the beam faded out from under him and just hovered in the air for a moment, too furious to speak. His flesh was smoking and his back was covered with painful burns. He could practically feel his blood boiling.
"How?!" he screamed as his voice echoed off the clouds. "How can she do this?! How can this… this insect, this nothing be more powerful than I?!" He felt his tail twitching with rage around his waist and then a thought struck him. There was nothing for it, it would seem. "Time to stop worrying about my Kingly good looks," he muttered to himself, "And end this! I shall simply look at this planet's moon and transform into the Oozaru." He smirked to himself and looked up at the moon. "Once I am transformed, I will…" Vegeta blinked when he realized that he hadn't started to transform yet. Why? What was wrong with their moon? WHO WAS THAT BLUE-HAIRED WOMAN WHOSE FACE HAD BEEN PAINTED ONTO IT?!
OoOoOoO
Several weeks beforehand
"Ms. Bulma," one of the Capsule Corp astronauts asked with a zero-gravity paint brush in his hand, "Do we need to paint your face on the moon?"
"Damn right you do," Bulma snapped into her headset from ground control. "How else will people know that the new moon was my idea?"
"Why were we going to blow up the moon in the first place?"
"Hey," Bulma said, "Are you gonna paint or are you gonna talk? Because I can turn off your oxygen."
"Painting now."
OoOoOoO
Goku collapsed onto her butt and let out a weary sigh. She looked up and saw Suno, Gohan, and Krillin flying towards her and grinned as she waved at them. It had been about a minute and he hadn't come back down yet so Vegeta was probably– The spark flitted across her brain and her eyes went wide.
"No…" she breathed. What else would it take?! She waved her arm frantically and tried to shoo them away and she struggled to her feet as she watched Vegeta make a ragged, stutter-stop descent towards her before he landed in front of her.
"I don't know," Vegeta started to say before he staggered. Then he caught himself and straightened again, "I don't know what you did to your planet's moon but it was only delaying the inevitable." Goku had no idea what the heck he was talking about. The moon? What did that have to do with anything? Vegeta raised one hand and ki gathered in his palm with a malevolent grin on his face. "Now you will see my true power, Kakarot! Then, finally, you will die." He hurled the ball high into the sky and clenched his fist. "Burst open and mix!" Before Goku could ask what the heck that meant, the ki exploded into a blinding flash of light and Goku cast her eyes down as Vegeta began to laugh maniacally. Goku looked up and watched with confusion and growing horror as Vegeta's eyes went white and his canines grew into fangs. There was a horrible crunching sound as the bones in his face distorted and stretched as dark brown fur sprouted all over his body. Vegeta's laugh turned into a roar as he shot up in height as his eyes turned blood red and began to grow.
"He… he can't be!" Goku muttered in terror as her skin went pale. His power was huge! More than that, Goku thought, he had turned into a giant monkey! Just like the monster that Grandpa had told her about! The one that killed him! Vegeta had said something about the moon… suddenly it all made sense! 'That's why Grandpa wouldn't let me see the full moon,' Goku realized. 'I was the monster! I killed Grandpa!' She looked up at Vegeta as the massive monster snarled down at her. 'Grandpa… I'm so sorry. I'll be able to tell you that soon.'
"Well, well, well," Vegeta boomed down at Goku, his voice much deeper, "You hardly seem like such a challenge anymore! Oh, and I should mention my power is ten times greater in this form!" He threw back his head and let out a booming laugh. "You never should have lost your tail, Kakarot! Now you will pay the price for throwing away your heritage!" Vegeta reached down with one of his huge hands and Goku barely managed to leap away using Kaiouken. This wasn't like when Piccolo had made himself huge. Vegeta was still fast! She hopped from rock to rock to try and avoid his enormous grasp.
She slipped through his fingers and made a mad dash up his arm to try and attack him. She threw a left jab at his jaw but Vegeta grabbed her arm in his other hand and squeezed it until it broke. Goku screamed in pain while Vegeta laughed but she managed to fight through the pain and lift up her legs until they were pointed at Vegeta's face.
"Kamehameha!" she cried and the blast flew from her feet to hit Vegeta right in his right eye. Vegeta dropped Goku and howled in pain as he clutched at his eye.
"I WILL RIP YOU LIMB FROM LIMB AND DEVOUR YOUR CORPSE!" Vegeta roared as Goku dropped down to the ground and dashed between the rocks. She clutched her broken arm in her good arm and tried to take stock of the situation. She'd been in worse fights than this, she told herself. Vegeta couldn't sense ki so she could use that to her advantage. She only had one bad arm, she'd been in way worse shape in the fight against Piccolo. Then again, Piccolo was about as strong as her. And not a giant. Vegeta was much stronger than her. And a giant.
'I've got one last trick,' Goku thought as she hid behind a pillar of rock and tried to slow down her breathing. 'I can use the Genki Dama! I'll just need time to cha–' Then Vegeta's foot smashed through the pillar. 'Never mind!'
"You won't get away this time, Kakarot!" Vegeta bellowed down at her and reached again. Goku quickly spun around and threw up her hand in front of her face.
"Taiyoken!" She cried and Vegeta screamed in pain again and clutched at his face as Goku dashed away again. She found an outcropping that she hoped was hidden enough and closed her eyes. She blocked out Vegeta screaming about his eyes and the horrific pain coursing through her entire body and especially the pain in her left arm as she raised her good arm overhead and opened herself to the energy of everything. 'The trees,' she thought, 'The rocks. The sea. The grass and the wind, all the creatures of the Earth and the very planet itself. Lend me your energy!' She could feel the power rushing through her body and into her hand and it filled her with a pleasant tingling. In spite of everything, she found herself smiling as the energy continued to gather. After a few minutes of gathering energy, Goku was sure that she had gathered enough. She clenched her glowing fist and smirked confidently as she opened her eyes.
She saw Vegeta's face not even ten yards away from her.
Goku didn't even get a chance to throw the Genki Dama before Vegeta opened his mouth wide and blasted her with an enormous pink laser from his mouth. The blast sent Goku flying through the air in a tumbling, smoking heap before she painfully hit the ground and skidded to a stop. Goku groaned and started to sit up but Vegeta was on her in a blink. Goku weakly lifted her arm to try and do something but, whatever she might have done, Vegeta stomped down on her legs and Goku felt everything beneath her hips shatter. The shrieks of her agony carried across the desert.
OoOoOoO
Suno, Krillin, and Gohan were halfway back to the plains where the fighting had started when they heard Goku's screams. They came to a screeching halt and Suno immediately spun around.
"That's it," she declared, "We're going back. Krillin, come with me. Gohan, you stay here."
"But I–" Gohan began to protest. Suno jabbed a finger in his face to shut him down.
"Gohan," Suno told her son firmly, "Stay. Here. You land and you get somewhere safe. Is that clear?" Gohan sighed and looked down at the ground.
"Yes, mother," he said softly. Suno nodded before she and Krillin took off towards the desert. Gohan started to drift down towards the ground and almost touched down when he heard Mama scream again. His young face screwed up with determination and he took off after them.
OoOoOoO
Krillin and Suno came to another sudden halt once they reached the fighting and found a giant monkey with Vegeta's haircut and wearing some of Vegeta's clothes, squeezing Goku between its monstrous fists.
"Huh," Krillin muttered, "Not gonna lie. Did not expect that." Mostly because it was daytime and hey, hadn't Bulma replaced the moon? "Okay, so we're gonna need a–" Then Vegeta squeezed Goku and they heard a crack and a scream.
"TAKE YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF HER!" Suno screamed furiously as she fired a ki blast at Vegeta and Krillin was forced to follow suit. They hit Vegeta in the side of the head and he slowly turned to look at them. For all the reaction he gave they might as well have thrown rocks. "Oh," Suno muttered in terror, "Oh, we should have had a plan."
"That's what I was going to–" Krillin began to say before Vegeta opened his mouth and fired an enormous ki blast at the pair from his mouth. Krillin and Suno barely managed to dodge and fired a few more ki blasts before disappearing behind a large rocky outcropping.
"Okay," Suno whispered, "What do we have for plans? What about the Kienzan?" Krillin shook his head.
"He knows I have it now. He'd see it coming, probably hear it, too, with those big ears. We'd need one heck…" Krillin's voice began to trail off as the ground rumbled under them, "Of a… distraction…"
OoOoOoO
Gohan was shocked when he saw the giant monkey that used to be Vegeta holding Mama. Mother and Krillin had tried to attack it but they hadn't done any good! Vegeta was just too strong for them. He started to cry when he heard Mama's screams but he stopped himself. Mr. Piccolo wouldn't want him to cry. He started looking around for something, anything, as his mind tried to come up with a plan or an idea. His eyes drifted upward and focused on the bright light in the sky. It was so pretty! It was like another sun! Gohan had barely begun to admire it when he had that funny feeling again. His heart began to beat painfully in his chest and his head started to hurt and he just felt so angry. Then he started to feel stronger and stronger. Mother and Krillin were ants below him. He was stronger than them. He was stronger than Mama! He was strong enough to save her! Strong enough to make the bad man dead.
OoOoOoO
Vegeta laughed again as he squeezed Kakarot in his hands and felt her bones crush and crack and shatter under his grip. The collar bone, the ribs, perhaps even a vertebrae or two. Kakarot's howls of anguish and pain only made him laugh louder.
"What will you do now, Kakarot?" he asked mockingly. "Your allies are dead! Even your brood has abandoned you! There is no one left to–" he stopped and noticed the ground was trembling under him. "What the devil?" He muttered to himself and turned in the direction of the quakes to see something he would never have dreamed to see here. Another Oozaru, barreling towards him like a missile. It bellowed with rage and slammed into him with force that could only be described as a mountain flying into another mountain. Vegeta was sent hurtling back and Kakarot flew from his grip as the other Oozaru tackled him into the ground and they went sprawling through the dirt, crushing mountains under their weight.
OoOoOoO
Suno and Krillin gawked in open-mouthed shock as a giant monkey that Suno struggled to accept was Gohan charged past them and tackled Vegeta. Goku used to turn into that?! They watched Goku fly out of Vegeta's hands and flew up to catch her. Goku groaned and whimpered weakly in Suno's arms and Krillin couldn't help but notice that one of Goku's hands was glowing.
"So," Suno said as they watched Vegeta and Gohan wrestle and devastate the landscape, "That work for a distraction?"
"Yeah," Krillin muttered, "That… that'll do it."