A/N: Long chapter warning.
The clash began with a blinding exchange of high-speed maneuvers. Vegeta, overflowing with confidence, took the offensive immediately, testing Goku with a barrage of sharp, lethal strikes. Goku parried and dodged, but Vegeta quickly proved his base power superior, slipping past Goku's guard to land heavy blows that sent the Earth-raised Saiyan crashing into the rocky terrain.
Realizing his standard power was vastly outmatched by the Saiyan Prince, Goku tapped into the dangerous technique taught to him by King Kai.
"KAIO-KEN!"
A sudden crimson aura burst around Goku, instantly doubling his speed and power. He lunged forward, catching Vegeta off guard with a swift counter-attack that shoved the Prince back. But Vegeta quickly adapted, powering up to match the surge and overwhelming Goku once more with sheer, raw force and ruthless combat precision.
Goku knew he had to push beyond his body's safe limits.
"KAIO-KEN TIMES THREE!"
The intense red energy flared violently, cracking the surrounding stone pillars and putting immense strain on Goku's muscle tissue. With his power tripled, Goku completely turned the tide. He vanished from sight, appearing instantly beside Vegeta to land a brutal gut punch, followed by an explosive sequence of kicks that sent the Prince flying across the canyon, coughing up blood.
Enraged beyond belief that a "low-class trash" had made him bleed, Vegeta flew straight up into the stratosphere, his aura surging with planet-shattering rage.
"I'LL BLOW THIS ENTIRE PLANET TO ASHES!" Vegeta screamed, cupping his hands to his side as a violet, destructive energy pooled in his palms. "GALICK GUN!"
He unleashed a massive, purple beam of catastrophic force straight down toward the Earth.
Goku planted his boots, cupped his hands, and drew on every ounce of Ki remaining in his overtaxed body.
"KA-ME-HA-ME... HAAAAA!"
A roaring blue beam shot upward, colliding with the Galick Gun mid-air. The two colossal energy surges locked together, grinding against one another and threatening to rip the atmosphere apart. Vegeta poured more power into his attack, slowly pushing the beam struggle back down toward Goku.
Driven to absolute desperation, Goku pushed his body past its utter breaking point.
"TIMES... FOUR!"
The blue Kamehameha exploded in size and power, completely overpowering the Galick Gun. The roaring beam swallowed Vegeta whole, blasting him straight up through the clouds and out into the upper atmosphere.
Goku fell to his knees, his muscles torn, his skin burning, and his entire body trembling violently from the catastrophic backlash of the Quadruple Kaio-ken.
Up on the high plateau, Escallion could only watch in stunned silence as the dust settled over the cratered wasteland.
Escallion landed with a soft thud in the ruined basin, his boots sinking into the hot ash.
Goku was collapsed on his hands and knees, chest heaving in ragged, shallow gasps. Smoke curled off his torn gi, his skin raw and inflamed from the brutal backlash of the fourfold Kaio-ken. He couldn't even raise his head; every nerve in his body was screaming.
Escallion looked down at the broken warrior, his face an unreadable mask.
Slowly, Escallion raised his hand, an orb of Ki igniting in his palm.
"You fought well, Kakarot," Escallion said softly, his dark eyes cold. "More impressively than anyone had a right to expect. But a broken weapon is useless, and you've burnt through every drop of fuel you had."
He leveled his hand straight at the back of Goku's head, aiming to end it quickly.
"HOLD YOUR HAND, ESCALLION!"
The harsh, blood-soaked roar echoed down from the sky.
Escallion paused, his eyes snapping upward. Hovering in the upper atmosphere, battered, bleeding, and his battle armor scorched to hell, was Vegeta. His face was twisted into a hideous, psychopathic sneer of absolute humiliation and rage.
"Vegeta...?" Escallion muttered, his hand dropping an inch. "You survived that beam?"
"Step away from him!" Vegeta snarled, floating down into the basin, his boots hitting the dirt with a heavy thud. He was trembling, but his eyes burned with a terrifying, unhinged malice. "He is mine! I will tear him apart piece by piece! No one steals my kill!"
"Look at him, Vegeta," Escallion replied coldly, gesturing to the helpless Goku. "He can barely breathe. Finish him now and let's get off this rock."
"No!" Vegeta spat, wiping blood from his chin. "A quick death is too merciful for this trash! I'm going to make him suffer!"
Vegeta thrust his hand into the air, pooling his raw energy into a dense, crackling orb of white-hot Ki, mixing it with the planet's atmospheric gases.
"Burst Open and Mix!"
Vegeta hurled the sphere high into the sky. The energy expanded rapidly, stabilizing into a glowing, artificial sphere that radiated intense, concentrated Blutz Waves across the valley floor.
Escallion instinctively looked up at the floating white orb. The Blutz Waves washed over him, hitting his retinas and surging down his optic nerves to trigger the dormant tail wrapped tightly around his waist. His heart hammered in his chest as his Saiyan physiology recognized the stimulus.
Thump-thump.
Escallion gritted his teeth, forcibly suppressing the biological urge to transform. He clamped down on his Ki, locking his heart rate and severing the reaction. He had trained his mind to consciously override the Oozaru transformation when necessary, maintaining his sharp, agile humanoid form rather than becoming a massive, lumbering target.
Beside him, however, Vegeta made no effort to suppress it.
Vegeta's heart rate spiked uncontrollably. His eyes turned a stark, glowing red, his jaw lengthened, sharp fangs sprouted from his gums, and his massive frame began to swell violently, ripping through what remained of his battle armor.
Within seconds, a massive, monstrous Great Ape stood towering over the ruined canyon, letting out a deafening, earth-shaking roar that tore through the valley.
Escallion leaped backward, landing on a high rock pillar to stay out of the beast's footprint, his eyes fixed on the towering Great Ape and the helpless Goku lying right beneath its massive shadow.
Towering over the crippled warrior, Great Ape Vegeta let out a deafening roar that shook the surrounding canyon pillars to their foundations.
Goku could only look up in absolute horror, his body paralyzed by the Kaio-ken's backlash. "A... Great Ape..." he gasped, the terrifying realization washing over him.
Goku could only look up in absolute horror, his body paralyzed by the Kaio-ken's backlash. He stared into the glowing red eyes of the beast, the brutal, familiar rhythm of its heavy stomps triggering a dark, long-buried memory in the back of his mind.
A monster... under the full moon...
Goku's breath hitched, a cold, sickening realization striking him far deeper than any physical blow ever could. The giant ape that had crushed his grandfather's house... the monster Grandpa Gohan had always warned him about...
It wasn't a monster... it was me, Goku thought, tears welling in his eyes as his entire world shattered. Grandpa... I'm the one who killed you...
There was no time to mourn. Driven by pure, sadistic vengeance, Great Ape Vegeta brought his colossal fist smashing down toward Goku. Goku barely managed to roll out of the way, the sheer air pressure of the strike shattering the stone beneath him and sending him tumbling into the dust.
What followed was a brutal, one-sided slaughter.
Vegeta moved with terrifying speed for his size, sweeping his massive tail across the valley floor to launch Goku into the air before swatting him back down like an insect. He stomped mercilessly on Goku's broken frame, laughing with a booming, reverberating roar as the earth cracked beneath his weight.
Desperate to turn the tide, Goku focused every remaining drop of his energy, raising his hands toward the sky to gather power for the Spirit Bomb. But as the sphere of life energy began to coalesce in his palms, Vegeta caught him off guard—shooting a devastating beam of mouth-fire that detonated right in front of Goku, scattering the gathered energy to the wind and blinding him.
With Goku completely helpless, Great Ape Vegeta reached down and scooped the Earth's protector into his massive, clawed hands.
CRUNCH.
Vegeta squeezed with world-ending pressure. The sound of Goku's ribs and spine fracturing echoed across the desolate wasteland, accompanied by a blood-curdling scream of pure agony from the broken warrior.
Up on his high rocky perch, Escallion watched the execution with a cold, unblinking glare, his arms crossed tight over his chest. The outcome was set the moment Kakarot burned his stamina, Escallion thought silently, watching the Great Ape tighten his crushing grip. Brilliant technique, but a terrible lack of endurance. It's over.
Just as Goku was on the absolute brink of death, two small signatures re-entered the airspace above the valley; Krillin and Gohan had returned.
Realizing that they were stepping in to break Vegeta's grip, Escallion narrowed his eyes, a pale purple aura flaring around his body as he intercepted them mid-air.
"I won't let you interfere!"
Escallion threw a rapid kick wrapped in pale purple Ki that sent Krillin crashing into a cliff face. Gohan tried to double back, but Escallion caught the boy by his gi collar, throwing a heavy, energy-laced strike into his ribs that sent him tumbling across the red dust.
While Escallion kept Krillin and Gohan pinned down, Yajirobe—who had been trembling behind a boulder the entire time—saw the giant monkey's exposed back. Creeping around Escallion's blind spot, Yajirobe drew his katana, let out a terrified screech, and leaped into the air.
SLASH!
The razor-sharp blade sliced clean through Great Ape Vegeta's tail.
Escallion snapped his head around in absolute shock as a shrieking roar of agony shattered the sky. "What?!"
Vegeta dropped Goku, his giant frame instantly shuddering as the transformation broke. The fur receded, the fangs vanished, and within seconds, a battered, exhausted, and bloody Vegeta collapsed into the dirt in his humanoid form, his tail completely severed.
Enraged beyond reason at the humiliation, Vegeta dragged himself up and bypassed Escallion entirely, turning his absolute wrath toward Gohan and beating the young hybrid relentlessly. But Goku, lying motionless in the dirt, managed to pass the small remnant of the Spirit Bomb he had saved over to Krillin.
With Gohan holding Vegeta's attention, Krillin aimed and unleashed the blue orb of energy. Vegeta sensed the threat at the last second and jumped into the air to dodge it, but Gohan, guided by King Kai's voice, redirected the sphere straight into Vegeta's chest.
BOOM!
The Spirit Bomb exploded against the Saiyan Prince, blasting him high into the sky in a blinding burst of pure, righteous energy.
When Vegeta plummeted back to Earth, cratering hard into the dirt, he was broken, bleeding, and barely conscious. Yet through sheer, terrifying force of will, the Prince raised his head once more, preparing to slaughter the remaining Earthlings, until he noticed Gohan's tail, fully exposed to the glowing Artificial Moon still hovering in the sky above.
Gohan looked up at the light, his eyes going wide, and within seconds, the half-breed transformed into a giant, wildly thrashing Great Ape.
In a frantic bid to survive, Vegeta managed to slice Gohan's tail mid-air, but as the colossal beast collapsed, its massive body fell straight onto Vegeta, crushing the last remnants of the Prince's ribs and leaving him utterly broken in the dirt.
With Vegeta crushed beneath Gohan's falling bulk and Goku paralyzed in the dirt, Krillin dragged his battered body forward. Panting heavily, he picked up Yajirobe's dropped katana, his hands trembling violently as he pointed the blade directly at the remaining standing Saiyan.
"Step... step back!" Krillin breathed, his eyes wide with fear, exhaustion, and sheer desperation. "Don't move a single muscle, or I swear to God I'll cut you down too!"
Escallion didn't even raise his arms. He stood over the cratered earth, looking at Krillin with a cold, unblinking glare. His faint, pale purple aura flickered once around his boots before settling into a soft, eerie glow.
"Put the sword down, Earthling," Escallion said, his voice flat and unnervingly quiet. "You can barely keep your knees from buckling. Don't embarrass yourself."
Escallion reached up, tapping a sequence into the control panel strapped to his wrist armor. The device hummed, beaming a long-range sub-space signal high into the atmosphere.
Beep... Beep... Beep...
"What are you doing?!" Krillin shouted, tightening his grip on the hilt, taking a shaky step forward.
"Calling our pods," Escallion replied dryly.
He scoffed, a dark, cynical twitch pulling at the corner of his mouth as his eyes drifted from Krillin to the broken, unconscious form of Vegeta pinned under Gohan's mass.
"Honestly, I should just finish the job right now," Escallion muttered, his pale purple Ki flaring slightly as he took a slow step toward Krillin. "I could incinerate you, Kakarot, and that half-breed in three seconds flat. I could fly into the stratosphere and blow this miserable rock to cosmic dust before your heart beats another five times."
Krillin swallowed hard, sweat mixing with the blood pouring down his face as he raised the katana higher.
"So why don't you?!" Krillin spat.
Escallion stopped, letting out a heavy, bitter breath as two bright red streaks tore through the upper atmosphere, descending fast toward the canyon.
"Because by the time I finished vaporizing this planet," Escallion said, casting a disgusted look back at the bleeding, broken Prince of all Saiyans, "Vegeta would already be dead. And as insufferable as he is, returning to Frieza alone after letting my entire squad perish isn't a scenario my survival chances favor."
The two spherical space pods slammed into the red dirt behind them with a deafening CRASH, sending a plume of dust washing over the crater.
Escallion turned his back on Krillin, walking over to Vegeta's crushed body. He effortlessly hauled the crippled Prince out from under Gohan's weight by his armor collar, slinging him over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
"Consider yourselves lucky," Escallion said over his shoulder, his dark eyes locking onto Krillin one last time as the pod door hissed open. "You survived today on a technicality. Next time, there won't be a Prince to drag home."
Escallion carried Vegeta to his pod, unceremoniously tossing the battered, broken Prince inside. The pod's automated medical restraint system hummed to life, securing Vegeta in place as the internal life support began stabilizing his faint vitals.
With a heavy hiss, the pod hatch sealed shut.
Escallion paused, his hand resting on the smooth, white shell of his own pod. Slowly, he turned his head, his dark, analytical eyes tracking across the ruined terrain until they settled on Goku.
The Earth-raised Saiyan lay face-down in the dirt, his body completely shattered, yet his eyes were still cracked open, staring back at Escallion with quiet, resolute defiance.
A shadow of a memory flickered through Escallion's mind. He thought back to the stories circulating through the lower ranks, to the ragged, stubborn warrior who had stood alone on the front lines during the final days of Planet Vegeta. He looked past Goku's torn Turtle School gi, taking in the sharp, unruly hair, the set of his jaw, and the sheer, foolish stubbornness burning in his gaze.
"You know, Kakarot..." Escallion said softly, his pale purple aura giving one final, faint pulse around his boots. "I spent this entire fight wondering why your face looked so damn familiar."
A cold, bitter smirk touched the corner of Escallion's mouth.
"You're the spitting image of your father. You look just like Bardock."
Goku's eyes widened slightly in quiet confusion, but before he could squeeze out a single word, Escallion stepped back into his pod.
"Grow stronger, Kakarot. Because when we meet again, there won't be any orders holding me back."
The hatch sealed shut with an airtight hiss. A second later, both space pods ignited their thrusters, shooting into the sky in twin bursts of white light, leaving the ruined wasteland behind as they tore through the atmosphere and vanished into the void of space.
-------------------------
The heavy metallic doors of the Frieza Force medical bay hissed open, venting a thick cloud of sterile, chilled mist.
Escallion strode into the brightly lit chamber, his boots clicking against the polished metal floor. Floating in the center of the room was a tall, cylindrical glass tank filled with dense, glowing green liquid—the Planet Freeza No. 79 standard recovery pod. Inside, Vegeta suspended motionless in a breathing mask, his broken body floating weightlessly as automated needles repaired shattered bone and mended torn muscle.
An alien medical officer in a white tunic tapped frantically away at a console beside the glass, monitoring the digital readouts scrolling across the monitors.
"Incredible..." the technician muttered under his breath, adjusting a dial. "Fractured ribs, ruptured organs, complete spinal trauma... his power level was practically in the gutter when you brought him in. Anyone else would have expired hours ago in deep space."
"Saiyans don't die easily," Escallion said flatly, stopping beside the tank and crossing his arms tight over his chest. His dark eyes locked onto the Prince's unconscious face through the glass. "How long until he's fully operational?"
"With this dosage of nutrient fluid? Roughly forty-eight hours," the doctor replied, turning to look at Escallion. "Though his vitals are spiking rapidly. His body is adapting to the trauma at an unnatural rate. Honestly, Lord Escallion, it's a miracle you managed to retrieve him at all. Lord Cui was already inquiring about the failure of the Earth expedition."
At the mention of Cui, Escallion's jaw tightened, a pale purple haze flickering faintly around his boots before he suppressed it.
"Cui is a sycophant who smells blood in the water," Escallion scoffed, his voice smooth, cold, and utterly detached.
Escallion leaned in slightly, looking at the oxygen bubbles drifting past Vegeta's face.
'If Cui knows about it, then there is no telling what Frieza knows,' Escallion thought, his eyes narrowing as he stared through the green fluid. He knew how the rumors spread through the Frieza Force network.
If the communications from Earth had been intercepted, if Frieza had caught wind of the Dragon Balls and their ability to grant immortality, their entire mission had just gone from a rogue conquest to a race against a cosmic tyrant.
Escallion leaned in slightly, looking at the oxygen bubbles drifting past Vegeta's face.
Vegeta was foolish enough to broadcast our intentions over open scouter channels, Escallion continued internally, his mind running through every possible contingency. Frieza won't waste a second. He's likely already en route to that backwater Namekian homeworld.
He turned his dark gaze back to the medical technician, who was busily tapping at the console, entirely oblivious to the shifting tide of galactic power.
"Accelerate the recovery cycle," Escallion ordered, his voice dropping an octave, heavy with unspoken tension. "Bypass the standard stabilization threshold. The moment his cellular regeneration hits ninety percent, drain the tank."
"B-but sir!" the doctor stuttered, looking up from his monitors in shock. "Draining the nutrient fluid early could cause severe muscle spasms! He needs the full forty-eight hours to—"
"He'll survive," Escallion cut him off sharply, a pale purple flick of Ki flaring around his fingertips. "Because the moment he opens his eyes, we aren't just fighting low-class trash anymore. We're going to war with Frieza."
The doctor's face went chalky white, his throat clicking as he swallowed hard. His eyes darted nervously from the glowing, pale purple orb hovering inches from his forehead to the icy, deadpan expression on Escallion's face.
The heat radiating off the concentrated Ki was enough to singe the alien's eyebrows, the faint humming tone vibrating through the small bones of his skull.
"Don't do anything stupid. Do as you are told, and you will live," Escallion murmured, his tone devoid of any theatrical rage—just the chilling, matter-of-fact delivery of a man making a simple statement of cause and effect.
"Y-Yes, sir! Immediately!" the doctor squeaked, dropping his datapad.
His hands trembled violently as he slammed his palm onto the manual override panel, keying in the emergency flush protocols. Red warning lights instantly began to pulse around the room, setting off a low, rhythmic alarm as the green nutrient fluid inside the glass cylinder began to drain at double speed.
Escallion let the purple sphere in his hand dissolve into nothingness, stepping back just as the glass casing hissed loudly and retracted into the ceiling.
Vegeta hit the metallic grate at the bottom of the pod with a heavy, wet THUD.
The Prince gasped for air, tearing the breathing mask off his face and coughing up lungfuls of thick, clear fluid. His dark eyes snapped open, bloodshot and burning with a chaotic mixture of disorientation, agony, and pure, raw malice.
"Escallion..." Vegeta rasped, his clawed hands gripping the edge of the drainage grate as his knees shook beneath him. He looked up, his breathing ragged as his Saiyan cells surged, the massive power increase from his near-death experience already igniting his aura in violent, invisible waves. "Where... where are we?"
"Planet Freeza No. 79," Escallion replied smoothly, tossing a clean uniform and a fresh pair of white boots at the Prince's feet. "And you need to get dressed. Fast."
Vegeta narrowed his eyes, catching the armor mid-air. "Why the hurry? Cui's pathetic power signature is the only thing I feel on this dump..."
"Because Cui isn't the problem," Escallion said, turning his back to watch the monitors as the ship's telemetry data processed. "Your loud mouth on Earth cost us our head start. Frieza intercepted the scouter logs about the Namekian Dragon Balls. He's already on his way to Namek."
Vegeta froze, the fresh battle suit slipping slightly in his grip as his eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated shock.
Vegeta didn't waste another second. He shoved his arms through the fresh white chest piece, the armor snapping tightly into place over his muscular torso. His teeth were gritted so hard a faint grinding sound filled the room as the realization of Frieza's head start sank in.
"That bastard..." Vegeta snarled, pulling his gloves on with a sharp snap. "He thinks he can just steal my immortality right out from under me—"
SWOOSH.
Before the medical technician could even register the movement, Escallion reached out with a lightning-fast backhand. A dense, pale purple blade of pure Ki extended from his fingers, slicing clean through the alien's throat in a single, fluid motion.
The doctor's body hit the metal floor with a muted thud, his datapad clattering into the pool of drained green nutrient fluid.
Vegeta paused, pulling his second boot on, looking over at the fresh corpse with a cold, uncaring glance. "A bit theatrical for you, isn't it? He was already cowering."
"He saw your condition when we arrived and heard us mention Namek." Escallion said, stepping over the body without a glance down, wiping a speck of violet residue from his glove. "Leaving a loose end in a Frieza Force facility is a statistical liability we can't afford. Dead men don't send status reports to Cui."
Vegeta let out a short, dark bark of a laugh, his power flaring violently around him, far stronger, sharper, and more destructive than it had been on Earth.
"Fair point," Vegeta sneered, tossing his scouter into the trash console on the wall. "We won't need these pieces of junk anyway."
Escallion checked his wrist console, the long-range coordinates of Planet Namek already locked into their flight plan.
"Our pods are prepped in Launch Bay 4," Escallion said, his pale purple aura pulsing faintly around his boots as he turned toward the sliding doors. "Cui is currently stationed near the main command tower. If we move now, we can launch before he even realizes we've left the medical wing."
Vegeta's eyes flashed with a lethal, arrogant light as he fell in step beside him. "Let him stay in the tower. When I come back from Namek immortal, he'll be the first bug I step on."