Three months after Gohan put down the Frieza brothers
King Cold's Headquarters.
"Out of my way! Send Frieza and his old man out here now!"
Vegeta carved through the legion as he bellowed, the Prince's fighting form flaring around him.
Boom boom boom!
With battle power at 500,000, he was a reaper among rabble. Blasts in every color hammered in from all sides, throwing up curtains of dust yet by the old smoke-but-no-scratch rule, he strode on unmarked.
When volleys failed, the rank-and-file panicked and charged.
"Clear off!"
Vegeta flung his arms wide. Ki swelled; a golden shell snapped around him.
"Limitless Scatter!"
From the sheath of light, arm-thick lances of energy geysered up, down, left, right everywhere. In a heartbeat half the mob vanished. (Anyone with trypophobia would've felt oddly… soothed.)
"Haaah "
He exhaled long. The technique drank deep.
The survivors stared hatred mingled with naked fear.
"We can't beat him run!"
As always, one break became a flood. In moments the yard lay empty.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Footsteps. Familiar, unhurried.
"Vegeta. Bold of you to come here. I hadn't even started looking for you."
King Cold stepped from the haze. (Frieza in truth Ginyu was still shut in training.)
"Cold," Vegeta said, voice like ice, "I'm here to wipe out your Frieza Race. This is for the Saiyans."
"Heh. Then you're a Super Saiyan, are you?" The old tyrant was no fool; he felt no killing edge from the prince.
"Tch. I don't need Super Saiyan to kill you."
"Come then, 'Prince.' Show me how strong your pride really is."
"You're dead!"
Vegeta blurred then appeared in Cold's face.
Crack!
A piston of a fist buried itself in Cold's gut. Pain twisted the tyrant's features.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A flurry of straights drove him skidding back. Vegeta followed with a back-flip kick that snapped Cold's jaw and sent him drilling into the fortress wall, leaving a man-shaped hole.
Vegeta didn't let up. He shot skyward, arms spread wide; muscle bunched along his forearms as he poured everything in. Hands drew together
"Final Flash!"
A pillar of molten gold ripped from his palms.
KRA-KOOOM!
The fortress disintegrated to powder. A mushroom cloud unrolled into the sky.
Vegeta hovered, shaking, breath ragged. Pushing past his limits had wrung him out.
"Cold take your time on the road to Hell. I'll send Frieza to catch up."
"Oh? Open."
A silhouette strode from the smoke. With a flex of ki, dust blew away in a ring.
King Cold stood there without a scratch, arms folded. "Been a while since I had a proper fight. That warmed me up nicely."
"You… you dare mock me!"
Anger spiked; the pale blue aura around Vegeta tinged gold, hair beginning to lift.
Was he ? Super Saiyan?
Five hundred thousand. One million. Eight million
His power spiked, cresting past ten million then stalled.
Not Super Saiyan. A Pseudo Super Saiyan surge.
Even so, the jump flipped the momentum.
Bam bam bam!
In seconds, Cold took a savage beating three ribs cracked.
"Enough back off!" Cold hurled a series of Pressure Cannons, shockwaves that blasted Vegeta away while the tyrant flashed back a hundred li to open space.
"If that's all a Super Saiyan is, it's pathetic," Cold sneered, wiping blood from his lip.
Vegeta steadied, mind clearing as the rush ebbed. He glanced down at his hands, feeling the flow.
"No… this isn't Super Saiyan. I don't know what happened but this power… it's incredible… Ha ha ha!"
"Arrogant whelp. You think I'm so easy to bully?"
Cold began to gather ki. He was about to transform
"Father. Leave this one to me."
The voice drifted in. Vegeta turned and saw Frieza.
(He had no way to know it was Ginyu inside that body.)
"Frieza! Perfect. I'll kill you both myself!"
"Heh heh. Monkey Super Saiyan or not, what can you do to me?" Ginyu's smile was pure contempt.
"Die! Big Bang Attack!"
Vegeta fired a blast a touch shy of his Final Flash.
BOOM.
More smoke. More nothing.
Frieza hung in the air, unruffled.
"Impossible…"
"Monkey," Ginyu drawled, "let me show you what three months of training has bought me."
His aura climbed and kept climbing. A pressure heavier than Cooler's final form poured off him. No bulging, no grotesque swell just hard, clean control, like Full-Power Super Saiyan.
In truth, he'd mastered this body. On the instruments he'd hit 1.2 billion full-output. He hadn't found a fourth transformation, but he no longer needed it.
The killing intent alone crushed Vegeta's newfound confidence. He stared, disbelieving.
"Vegeta, rest easy," Ginyu said softly, lifting one finger. A pinprick of red light bloomed at the tip. "The rest of the Saiyans won't be far behind you."
Ziiip.
Death Beam. The lance went clean through his heart. Pupils blew wide; life fell away.
Vegeta's body dropped from the sky.
"Hah! Well done worthy of my son." King Cold laughed, delighted. "To reach such power without even a final metamorphosis… the greatest talent our homeworld has seen."
Ginyu inclined his head. "Father, with this strength, I'm confident I can kill a Super Saiyan."
From Burter and Jeice's telemetry over Namek, they'd concluded the boy who slew Cooler Son Gohan peaked around seven hundred million. By that math, Ginyu could crush him.
He forgot one thing: while you grind, others train too.
"Excellent. Muster the legion. We set course for Earth now."
The Cold Army surged to readiness as father and "son" drove their armada toward the blue world.
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