Two more months of blood and gravity—then the real monster finally sets foot on Planet Vegeta.
Two more months passed.
Time slid by inside sweat, roars, and the heavy drone of an overworked gravity generator. For Vitelli, training wasn't suffering—it was a measurement. A clean scale that told him, without lies, how much stronger he'd become.
That crude gravity chamber—its pressure wildly unstable—had turned into the finest whetstone he could ask for.
Every time he pushed near the limit, something sleeping inside Saiyan blood was yanked awake by force.
Boring?
Not a chance.
He could feel muscle fibers tear and rebuild tougher than before. He could feel the "ki" inside him growing denser, sharper, more violent. Strength that could be seen, counted, verified—strength that didn't rely on luck or permission.
It filled him in a way that was almost unhealthy.
"HA—!"
Under triple Planet Vegeta gravity, Vitelli moved fast enough to leave afterimages. His fists and legs hammered into a reinforced alloy target with a deep thunder that shook the yard.
The target's surface was already ruined—webbed with cracks, stamped with deep fist impressions. Sweat ran off him like a stream, pooling at his feet… only to flash into mist from the heat pouring off his body.
Bzzzt—!
The gravity chamber screamed like a dying beast.
Then it died.
The control panel sputtered and coughed up thin, acrid smoke.
"Tch. Broke again…"
Vitelli stopped, chest heaving, and glanced at the scouter lens. The number had stabilized at 13,000.
He exhaled through his nose, half annoyed, half resigned.
This junky device had finally failed to keep up with him.
He'd already placed demands with a group of low-ranking alien logistics and research personnel on Planet Vegeta:
Build him a proper gravity room.
Stable output. Adjustable gravity. The higher the ceiling, the better.
A reply had come back a week ago.
They could do it—but Planet Vegeta's gravity tech was backward. Ten times the planet's gravity was the absolute limit.
"Ten times?"
Vitelli had frowned the moment he heard it.
That was far below what he expected. In the original story, Capsule Corporation could build hundreds of times gravity like it was nothing.
But after a second of thought, he let it go.
This place was only a stopover.
"Fine. Ten times is ten times. Better than nothing. As long as it's ready in a week."
Even as he agreed, his mind was already racing ahead.
Once he got to Earth and found that genius girl from Capsule Corporation, a few hundred times gravity would be a casual afternoon project.
He was weighing how far he could push himself with the new room when a knock landed on his door—sharp, precise, carrying the unmistakable rhythm of the royal palace.
When he opened it, a Saiyan soldier in standardized armor stood outside, face blank and eyes cold.
"Elite Warrior Vitelli," the man said flatly. "By King Vegeta's order, report to the palace front plaza immediately. Lord Cold is arriving."
Cold?!
Vitelli's mind went tight in an instant.
The name dragged up an image burned into his memory from the anime—towering, horned, regal… and terrifying.
Frieza.
Cold's son.
Why now?
"Ai Age 731… late year… Frieza's first formal visit to Planet Vegeta?"
Vitelli's thoughts snapped through a blurred timeline.
Yes—this was around the period when Frieza began inspecting his territory as heir to the empire… and brought new scouters to his forces.
"Damn it."
The scouter.
Vitelli's internal alarm bells went berserk. Frieza's scouter wouldn't be Planet Vegeta's outdated trash. Higher precision—possibly with added functions, surveillance, tracking.
He glanced at the old model hooked over his ear, then felt the ki in his body, deliberately suppressed to a level around three thousand.
"From now on… anything like this gets treated as dangerous."
Under Frieza's eyes, even the smallest abnormality could become a death sentence.
"Yes," Vitelli replied calmly. "I'll go immediately."
He followed the messenger out, rose into the air, and flew toward the palace.
Not too fast. Not too slow.
His ki stayed stable—held at a level that matched a newly awakened elite prodigy.
Low-profile.
He needed to dissolve into the crowd like water into the sea—present, but unnoticed.
When Vitelli landed in the vast plaza before the royal palace, it was already packed.
Nearly every mid- to high-ranking Saiyan warrior still on the planet had gathered. The air was tense—suppressed solemnity wrapped around a faint, crawling unease.
At the very front stood King Vegeta.
His face was hard, posture rigid, but Vitelli caught it—the thin layer of weight behind his eyes.
Concern.
Vitelli's arrival drew the king's attention. That severe gaze swept over him, lingering for a moment with a measuring, evaluative chill.
Vitelli stepped forward and dropped to one knee.
"Vitelli greets my King."
King Vegeta narrowed his eyes. His scouter chirped—beep-beep-beep—reading Vitelli's controlled aura, steady around nineteen hundred.
A curve tugged at the king's mouth—barely a smile, more like possession.
"Mm. Rise, Vitelli."
His voice carried that superior approval a ruler gave a tool he found acceptable.
"As expected of Met's child. Only a few months awake and your battle power is already nearing two thousand. You have not disgraced your father's name. Good. Continue. In the future, you will serve Prince Vegeta well."
"Thank you for your praise, my King!" Vitelli said, letting excitement color his tone.
Inside, he felt nothing.
Serve that lifelong second-place prince?
Not in a thousand years.
"Go stand in the back," King Vegeta ordered, tone cooling again. "Lord Cold's arrival is imminent. Do not offend our honored guests."
"Yes!"
Vitelli's heart ticked with satisfaction.
The back was exactly where he wanted to be.
He rose, lowered his head, and moved quickly to the rear ranks, blending into the mass like a shadow.
King Vegeta's "encouragement" wasn't encouragement at all—it was the king pushing him away from the center.
Vitelli welcomed it.
Time crawled.
No one spoke loudly. No one laughed. Even the wind felt muted.
Then a low, restrained shout rippled through the crowd.
"They're here!"
High above, the sky darkened.
A dense swarm of round spacecraft swept in like a plague of steel locusts, carrying a pressure that felt like doom on approach.
They didn't bother respecting Planet Vegeta's airspace or architecture.
Their massive hulls smashed through tall structures on the way in, reducing buildings to collapsing fire. Explosions chained one after another. The city's screams rose faintly from below the palace.
In the plaza, every Saiyan—every single one, including King Vegeta at the front—dropped to one knee.
The movement was synchronized.
It was discipline.
It was also humiliation.
Vitelli copied them instantly, half-kneeling, leaning forward, head lowered.
He locked his ki hard at the two-thousand threshold, making himself as unremarkable as possible.
Stone.
Dust.
Nothing.
"Welcome, Lord Cold—!" The roar surged upward, filled with fear disguised as reverence.
A gigantic figure drifted down from the largest ship—Lord Cold, towering and broad, deep purple skin, horns curving from his head. His presence alone pressed like a mountain.
Beside him floated a smaller white figure—
so small it looked wrong next to Cold.
Frieza.
Even from the back, Vitelli felt the temperature drop in his bones.
"Hahahahaha!" Cold's laughter rolled like thunder. "King Vegeta! It's been a long time!"
King Vegeta rose first, posture lowered, voice oiled with obedience.
"Greetings, Lord Cold! Greetings, Prince Frieza!"
Cold and Frieza descended.
And in the instant their feet were about to touch the ground, Vitelli's peripheral vision caught something new at the front of the plaza—
a squad of oddly posed figures, movements exaggerated like stage performers.
The Ginyu Force.
They were already striking their signature, cringe-inducing poses with absolute seriousness.
"…"
Vitelli's mouth twitched.
He lowered his head immediately, terrified that even the hint of an expression could draw attention.
These idiots really did treat existence itself as a performance.
"Ohohohoho… King Vegeta," Frieza said, his voice light and playful—yet cold enough to freeze blood. "No need for such formality."
"Yes, Prince Frieza," King Vegeta answered, lowering himself even further.
Cold smiled like a man enjoying theater.
"King Vegeta," he said, voice carrying effortless authority, "from today onward, your Saiyan race will be placed entirely under my son's command. The Cold Force will also be officially renamed… the Frieza Force."
He paused, letting it sink in.
"Keep your spirits up. Frieza is… far more cold-blooded than I am."
Before Cold could enjoy his own warning, Frieza lifted a hand, politely interrupting his father.
His small body leaned forward slightly.
Red eyes swept over the sea of kneeling Saiyans.
A smile spread across his face—pretty, gentle, and deeply wrong.
"Sa~iyans."
His voice was bright, almost childish.
But the air around him felt like a blade.
"From today on, I am your new master. I'm very, very excited to see what you can do. I do hope you won't disappoint me… hehehe."
Then, as if it was nothing, Frieza reached to a box held by an attendant and picked up a compact, sleek new scouter.
He placed it over his ear.
And began to scan the crowd.
Slowly.
Casually.
Every Saiyan his gaze touched seemed to shrink further, bodies bowing lower, breathing stopping out of instinct—like prey trying to become invisible.
"Ah?"
Frieza's tone lifted, amused.
He pointed toward the top of a tall building behind the palace.
"It seems there are a few little insects… who aren't very friendly."
Swish—swish—swish!
Thin, refined crimson beams fired from his fingertip like the guillotine's whisper.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The reinforced alloy structure tore open like paper. Metal screamed. Fire erupted. Smoke boiled upward.
A handful of figures at the top—armed, apparently trying to watch—didn't even finish their screams before the explosion erased them into dust.
The shockwave reached the plaza edges, stirring a wave of suppressed gasps and shudders.
Vitelli kept his head down, teeth clenched.
"That bastard…"
He stole a glance forward.
King Vegeta's head had lowered even further.
His broad shoulders trembled faintly.
Vitelli's thoughts turned cold and mocking.
"The Saiyan King? Hah. In front of real power, he's just another dog."
It was almost funny.
Almost.
Frieza seemed bored the moment the killing ended. His smile faded into that empty, superior indifference.
With a careless flick, he tossed the new scouter to the ground in front of King Vegeta.
It clacked against stone with a sharp, crisp sound.
"There you go," Frieza said lightly. "A little gift for you Saiyans. The newest model scouter. Five hundred of them. The functions are… somewhat complex. You can figure them out yourselves."
He added, airy as a feather:
"If you run out, you can always ask me for more. Ohohoho~."
Then he turned, no longer interested in any of them, and drifted back toward his ship like he was leaving a pleasant garden party.
Cold laughed loudly and followed.
The fleet rose again, the same way it came—an iron cloud of ruin that battered through the atmosphere and vanished into the dim sky.
The entire meeting—pressure, slaughter, humiliation—ended as abruptly as it began.
The plaza fell into dead silence.
A long moment passed before King Vegeta slowly stood.
His face was iron-gray.
Both fists were clenched so tightly his nails nearly cut skin.
High-ranking officials rushed toward him, whispering urgently.
Vitelli had no interest.
He only wanted to return to his house and keep sharpening his strength.
In his mind, roaring uselessly in rage was a luxury for the weak. Scheming desperate "solutions" that would never work was a waste of breath.
Better to throw ten thousand more punches.
Better to raise his battle power by even a single point.
But as he turned to leave, a palace official—moving fast, clearly rushing to report back—blocked his path.
The man spoke rapidly.
"Vitelli! Go back and prepare. Next month, Prince Vegeta will awaken from the incubation tank. Your duties as the prince's guard will take effect immediately. You must remain by His Highness at all times. No mistakes."
"What?"
Vitelli's stomach dropped.
He blurted before he could stop himself.
"I thought there were still six months!"
The official shot him a hard glare, irritated.
"Is the prince's awakening schedule something you're allowed to discuss? This is King Vegeta's order. Go prepare. Wait for the formal notice."
And with that, he shoved past Vitelli and disappeared into the stream of palace personnel.
Vitelli stood frozen.
He watched the official's back, then lifted his eyes toward the palace's looming silhouette.
Cold slid up his spine.
Vegeta awakening early?
Right after Frieza's arrival?
That wasn't coincidence.
King Vegeta had just tasted real terror. He needed his son—his "hope"—awake as soon as possible.
And Vitelli, as "guard," was being chained to that accelerated march toward a cliff.
"…Trouble."
His brow tightened.
Guarding Vegeta meant living at the prince's side—close to a boy known for pride, cruelty, and treating lives like dirt.
Vitelli's "public" two-thousand battle power would mean nothing in that environment.
A single misstep and another guard could decide to "clean up the trash."
Worse—standing beside Vegeta meant being dragged deeper into the Frieza Force's sphere.
More eyes. More scouters. More risk.
He'd need to master suppression to perfection.
He'd need to treat every device like a potential noose.
Vitelli drew a slow breath and forced order into his mind.
Panic solved nothing.
"Fine."
A sharp edge flashed in his eyes.
"If it's early, it's early. If Vegeta wakes sooner, then my chance to disappear to Earth can come sooner too. That might not be bad."
As for the royal family's commands?
He almost laughed.
The only thing he could truly rely on—
was the strength clenched inside his fists.
"Thirteen thousand… isn't enough."
Not even close.
He turned away from the palace and stared toward the direction of his house, expression set.
The new gravity room would be delivered in a week.
Ten times gravity would become his new starting point.
And as he started moving, one last thought surfaced—simple, brutal, and absurdly Saiyan:
"Now I'm going back… and doing thirty thousand push-ups."
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