The silence stretched between the two Saiyans like a taut wire, heavy with unspoken challenge. Vegeta's eyes narrowed as he studied Sage, trying to understand what had changed. The broken, guilt-ridden warrior from moments before had been replaced by something else—something that made the prince's instincts scream warnings.
"Impossible," Vegeta muttered, his scouter flickering erratically. "Your power reading is... fluctuating. What are you doing?"
Sage didn't answer immediately. He stood straighter despite his injuries, and when he spoke, his voice carried a certainty that hadn't been there before.
"I thought I was weak. I thought I was broken. I thought I was everything you said—worthless, low-class, a coward."
His hands slowly clenched into fists, and the air around him began to shimmer more intensely.
"But you want to know what I realized?" Sage's eyes locked onto Vegeta's, and for the first time, the prince saw no fear there. "I wasn't weak because I was low-class. I was weak because I forgot what it meant to be a warrior."
"Enough philosophy!" Vegeta snarled, launching himself forward with devastating speed. His fist aimed for Sage's heart, a killing blow meant to end this farce immediately.
But Sage wasn't there.
The younger Saiyan had moved—not with his usual calculated precision, but with pure instinct. His body flowed around Vegeta's attack like water, and his counter-strike caught the prince in the ribs with enough force to send him skidding across the battlefield.
Vegeta's eyes widened in shock. "How—? Your speed just doubled!"
"Tripled, actually." Sage's voice had changed. Gone was the hesitant, guilt-ridden tone. In its place was something cold and confident. "Amazing what happens when you stop fighting yourself."
The prince's scouter began beeping frantically. "Nine thousand... ten thousand... what is this?"
Sage began walking toward Vegeta, his movements fluid and predatory. With each step, his power continued to climb, but more than that, the very quality of his energy was changing. Where before it had been controlled and precise, now it felt wild, primal—dangerous.
"You asked about my father," Sage said, his aura beginning to flicker visibly around him. "His name was Toma. He was a low-class warrior, just like you said. But he had something you'll never understand."
Vegeta scrambled to his feet, his earlier confidence evaporating. "What are you talking about?"
"He had warrior's pride." The words came out like a physical force, and Sage's aura suddenly blazed to life—not the typical golden-white of Saiyan energy, but something deeper. Something violet. "He didn't bow to anyone. He didn't wear their armor or follow their orders. When our planet burned, he saved his son and died fighting. That's what real strength looks like."
The violet flame around Sage intensified, casting strange shadows across the battlefield. His power level was climbing rapidly—twelve thousand, fourteen thousand, sixteen thousand—but the scouter couldn't seem to get a stable reading. The energy readings fluctuated wildly, as if the very nature of his ki had fundamentally changed.
"Impossible!" Vegeta's voice cracked with disbelief. "Low-class Saiyans can't—"
"Can't what?" Sage's power spiked again, and cracks appeared in the ground beneath his feet. The violet aura pulsed outward in waves, each pulse sending tremors through the earth. "Can't transform? Can't ascend? Or can't make you look like the pretender you are?"
For the first time in his life, Prince Vegeta took a step backward in fear.
The violet aura around Sage wasn't just changing his power—it was changing him. His injuries were healing at a visible rate, broken bones snapping back into place with audible pops. His dislocated shoulder rolled back into its socket with a wet crack, and the blood streaming from his face began to slow and clot. His black hair had gained violet highlights that shimmered in the strange light of his transformation, and his muscles seemed to become more defined, more powerful.
But it was his eyes that truly marked the change. They burned with violet fire, holding an intensity that spoke of pride awakened after years of suppression. This wasn't the desperate fury of someone with nothing to lose—this was the cold wrath of a warrior who had finally remembered what he was fighting for.
"Eighteen thousand," Sage said calmly, reading his own power level with newfound clarity. "Same as you, Your Highness. Funny how that works out."
Vegeta's face twisted with rage and denial. "I am elite-class! I am the Prince of all Saiyans! I will not be surpassed by some low-class trash!"
He exploded forward with everything he had, his white aura blazing as he unleashed a barrage of strikes meant to overwhelm Sage through sheer ferocity. His right fist shot toward Sage's face with enough force to shatter stone, followed immediately by a left hook aimed at his ribs, then an uppercut targeting his solar plexus.
But now Sage met him blow for blow, their fists colliding with impacts that shook the earth and sent shockwaves rippling across the battlefield. Where Vegeta's punch came in straight and brutal, Sage's counter was fluid and precise, deflecting the attack while simultaneously striking back. The sound of their collisions echoed like thunder, each impact creating small craters where their feet touched the ground.
For the first time in the fight, they were truly equal.
"This is impossible!" Vegeta roared between strikes, his perfect technique clashing against Sage's newfound instinctive style. He threw a devastating hook that should have caved in Sage's skull, but the younger Saiyan ducked under it and drove an elbow into Vegeta's kidney with surgical precision. "You're nobody! You're nothing!"
"Maybe," Sage replied, his voice eerily calm as he blocked a devastating uppercut with his forearm and countered with an elbow that caught Vegeta across the jaw, sending the prince stumbling backward. "But I'm the nobody who's about to kick your ass."
They separated, both breathing hard, circling each other like predators. The fallen Z-fighters remained motionless around them—Piccolo's green form crumpled against a boulder, Krillin face-down in the dirt, Tien and Chiaotzu lying broken nearby, and little Gohan still unconscious where he'd fallen. The battlefield had become a wasteland of craters and shattered stone, testament to the power these two were now wielding.
"What is this transformation?" Vegeta demanded, his earlier arrogance completely gone. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he tried to process what was happening. "This violet flame—I've never seen anything like it! It's not in any of the archives, not in any of the legends!"
Sage glanced down at his hands, watching the violet energy dance around his fingers like living flame. The power felt intoxicating, like electricity running through his veins. Every cell in his body hummed with energy, and he could feel his senses sharpening to incredible levels. He could hear Vegeta's heartbeat, smell the fear in his sweat, feel the minute vibrations in the ground from his shifting weight.
"Neither have I," he admitted, flexing his fingers and watching the violet ki respond to his will. "But it feels... right. Like this is what I was always supposed to be."
He looked back up at Vegeta, and his expression was no longer that of a broken survivor or guilt-ridden young man. It was the face of a warrior in his prime, confident in his strength and certain of his purpose. The transformation had burned away years of trauma and self-doubt, leaving only the core of what he truly was.
"You want to know the difference between us, Prince?" Sage's power flared again, violet flames reaching toward the sky like a beacon. The energy was so intense that small rocks began floating around him, caught in the gravitational distortion of his ki. "You fight for your pride in what you were born to be. I fight for what I earned through blood and sweat."
"Enough words!" Vegeta's aura exploded outward as he poured everything into one final assault. His power climbed even higher, pushing past his normal limits through sheer force of will and rage. "I'll show you the true power of elite-class!"
He came at Sage with killing intent, his attacks faster and more vicious than anything he'd shown before. His first strike was a feint—a jab toward Sage's face that pulled back at the last second as his real attack, a devastating knee strike, aimed for the younger Saiyan's ribs. But Sage read the deception instantly, catching Vegeta's knee on his forearm and pivoting to slam his elbow into the prince's exposed back.
Vegeta twisted away from the blow, using the momentum to spin into a backhand that would have decapitated a normal opponent. Sage ducked under it, his violet aura flaring as he launched himself forward in a tackle that drove both Saiyans through a massive boulder, reducing it to rubble.
They rolled apart and came up fighting, trading blows at a speed that would have been invisible to normal eyes. Vegeta's royal training showed in every technique—perfect form, maximum efficiency, no wasted motion. But Sage's style had evolved beyond his careful, calculated approach. The violet transformation had awakened something primal in him, a fighting instinct that had been buried under years of overthinking and self-doubt.
Their battle was spectacular and brutal. Vegeta would launch a combination of precise strikes, each one capable of leveling a building, only to have Sage flow around them like smoke and counter with devastating precision. When Sage went on the offensive, his attacks came in unpredictable patterns that forced Vegeta to adapt constantly, his royal training barely keeping pace with this new, instinctive style.
"How are you keeping up with me?!" Vegeta snarled as he blocked a spinning kick that would have caved in his ribs, only to take a follow-up punch to the stomach that doubled him over. "I've trained since childhood! I'm elite-class!"
"And I've been training to survive," Sage replied, grabbing Vegeta by the armor and headbutting him with enough force to crack the prince's skull, sending him staggering backward with blood streaming from his forehead. "Turns out there's a difference."
They clashed again in the center of the battlefield, their auras—white and violet—swirling together in a spiral of destructive energy. The ground beneath them couldn't withstand the pressure and simply disintegrated, leaving them fighting in mid-air through sheer force of will and ki manipulation.
Vegeta threw everything he had into a final desperate assault. His fists moved like pistons, each strike powerful enough to shatter mountains. But Sage met every attack, his violet flames burning brighter with each exchange. The transformation wasn't just giving him power—it was teaching him, showing him techniques and abilities he'd never known he possessed.
Just as their battle reached its crescendo, with both Saiyans pushing themselves beyond their limits, a new energy signature appeared on the battlefield.
"KAIOKEN!"
The voice cut through the sound of their combat like a blade, and suddenly a third fighter slammed into the battle with the force of a meteor. Goku, his body wreathed in crimson energy, appeared between the two combatants and caught both of their fists simultaneously—Vegeta's in his left hand, Sage's in his right.
"That's enough!" Goku's voice carried an authority that hadn't been there before his time with King Kai. His power, multiplied by the Kaioken technique, was staggering—easily dwarfing both of the other Saiyans. "We're not going to solve anything by beating each other to death!"
Vegeta's eyes widened in shock as he felt the power radiating from Goku's grip. "Impossible! Kakarot, your power level—it's over nine thousand!"
"Try twenty thousand," Goku replied grimly, his crimson aura pulsing with dangerous energy. "And climbing. I learned a few things while I was dead."
Sage stared at Goku in amazement, his violet flames flickering with uncertainty. "You're... you're alive. But how? I thought—"
"The Dragon Balls," Goku explained, releasing both of their fists and stepping back. His crimson aura continued to blaze around him, but his expression was calm, controlled. "My friends brought me back. Good thing too—looks like you guys could use some help."
He glanced around the battlefield, taking in the fallen Z-fighters, the massive craters, and the general devastation. His expression hardened as he saw Gohan's small form lying motionless nearby.
"Gohan!" Goku started toward his son, but Vegeta's voice stopped him.
"Don't you dare turn your back on me, Kakarot!" The prince's aura flared with renewed fury. "I don't care what power you've gained—I am still the Prince of all Saiyans!"
"And where's your partner?" Goku asked, his eyes scanning the battlefield. "That big guy—Nappa. What happened to him?"
Vegeta's expression darkened. "That fool proved useless. I dealt with him accordingly."
The casual dismissal of his own ally's life made Goku's jaw tighten. "You killed your own partner?"
"He was weak," Vegeta replied coldly. "Weakness has no place among Saiyans."
"You're wrong," Goku said, his crimson aura flaring brighter. "And I'm going to prove it."
Sage felt his violet transformation pulse in response to Goku's crimson aura. The two energies seemed to recognize each other—both born from desperate need to protect rather than conquer.
"Listen," Goku said, his Kaioken aura stabilizing as he looked between the two fighters. "I don't care about princes or classes or any of that. What I care about is that you came here to destroy my planet and hurt my friends."
He gestured toward the fallen Z-fighters scattered across the battlefield. "These people have families. They have lives. And they put themselves on the line to protect Earth from you."
"Spare me your sentiment," Vegeta sneered. "The weak exist to serve the strong. That's the natural order."
"No," Sage said, his violet flames flaring as he stepped forward. "The strong exist to protect the weak. That's what real warriors do."
Goku nodded, his crimson aura pulsing in agreement. "He's right. And if you want to hurt this planet or anyone on it, you'll have to go through both of us."
Sage glanced at Goku, surprised by the offer of alliance. This was the man whose death he had indirectly caused, yet here he was, willing to fight alongside him to defend Earth.
"You sure about that?" Sage asked quietly. "After everything that happened?"
"Right now, what happened before doesn't matter," Goku replied, his expression serious. "What matters is stopping him from hurting anyone else."
The two Earth-raised Saiyans stood side by side, their auras—crimson and violet—beginning to resonate with each other. The combination was striking and ominous, two different types of transformation united by a common purpose.
"This is absurd!" Vegeta backed away, his confidence finally cracking completely. "You're both low-class! You can't—"
"We're defenders of Earth," Goku interrupted, his Kaioken aura flaring brighter. "And you're threatening our home."
"Our families," Sage added, his violet flames reaching toward the sky. "Our friends."
"Everything we care about," they said almost in unison, their combined presence creating a pressure that made the very air heavy.
Together, the two Earth-raised Saiyans charged toward the Prince of all Saiyans, their combined auras creating a light show that could be seen from orbit. Vegeta, for the first time in his life, realized he might have bitten off more than he could chew.
The real battle was just beginning, and for the first time since arriving on Earth, Prince Vegeta realized he might be outmatched by warriors who had earned their power the hard way.
Authors note: i know it seemed like i have made vegeta all about how he was not a hardworker and how he was spoon fed power... we up until now he kinda was but anyways there will be character development so dont worry k