Vegeta took a step back, his mouth hanging open. Standing in front of him was Captain Ginyu himself, feared across galaxies.
The captain crossed his arms. "Lord Frieza has decided to spare your two friends. He doesn't want your species to be extinct, you know. That's his policy... he always spares some members for educational purposes."
Vegeta took another step back, heart pounding. This was the infamous Captain Ginyu. Nobody in the universe could defeat him except for King Cold and his sons.
Captain Ginyu continued, "But sadly, he wants you to be killed. Too bad for you that we were on a nearby planet, so he assigned us to get the dirty job done."
Vegeta gathered his resolve. There had to be a way out of this. He clenched his fist in front of him. "I know why! He is afraid of me! He is afraid of my bloodline! He fears a Super Saiyan may rise to tear him apart! Since he got his fellow Arcosians killed to avoid any challenges to his power, this doesn't come as any surprise to me!" he spat.
Ginyu laughed out loud. "It isn't really a matter of being afraid. It's more about dealing with a little nuisance beforehand. Lord Frieza is very meticulous."
Vegeta scowled. "He may be. But once again, he has made a huge mistake... by underestimating the Saiyan race!" The prince raised a finger in front of him in a revolver fashion and charged it with energy.
Ginyu snickered.
Vegeta narrowed his eyes. "Bang."
THACK! THACK! THACK! THACK!
Ginyu winced as smoke rose from his temple. His scouter had been destroyed. "What the-?" All the other scouters on the battlefield had been destroyed as well.
Vegeta growled as he pulled his hands behind him. "Now taste this." Purple energy began to crackle around him. "Galick Gun, FIRE!"
A thick purple beam of energy shot forward from Vegeta's extended hands.
Raditz's eyes widened. He didn't know if this would be able to hurt Ginyu or not, but he was sure it was enough to kill him if he got caught up in the explosion.
Ginyu grinned as the beam of energy approached him. However, instead of hitting him, it hit the ground near his feet.
DISHOO!
A huge cloud of dust was kicked up. The beam had detonated inside the sandy soil of the planet.
Everyone was coughing as Vegeta zapped away from the place.
...
The prince was running as fast as his legs allowed. His son... he had to find his son first. Soon he found him sitting on the ground, chewing on some berries.
Vegeta grabbed his son. His aim had been right on. A short distance away was his space pod. The prince immediately got inside and pushed some random coordinates on his remote. The pod blasted off immediately.
. . .
Ginyu and his soldiers began to recover as the dust around them slowly dissipated.
The Captain looked furious. "No! He got away!" He turned to his soldiers. "SEARCH FOR HIM!"
The PTO fighters obeyed, spreading out over the land.
. . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .
Meanwhile, deep in space, a group of space pods sped onwards...
Bardock tried to connect to Paragus, Zator, anyone, but was unsuccessful. What was the matter? They couldn't all have their scouters discharged at the same time.
Two days later...
Bardock and his crew landed on the soil of Frieza Planet 390. Their target, the ammunition house, was about two hundred miles away.
His crewmates began to assemble a device they had brought in parts. With this device, recently invented by them, they could aim their energy attacks at the ammunition house from this far away.
BEEP! BEEP!
They looked around. Nobody was there.
Then they heard coarse laughter. Bardock turned his head upwards, and his jaw dropped. Something was wrong. How did Frieza know?
Floating in the air with a crew was none other than Dodoria.
The pink blob wasn't in much mood for words. He opened his mouth wide and fired a blast at them.
DISHOOOM!
A huge white hemisphere of energy formed on the landscape.
...
Bardock gritted his teeth as he lay on the ground, his body battered and bruised from Dodoria's powerful attack. Every movement sent waves of pain coursing through him, but he forced himself to stand, his vision swimming with the effort. The landscape around him was scorched and smoldering, the aftermath of the blast that had decimated his crew.
Dodoria stood a short distance away, his hulking frame casting a menacing shadow over the battlefield. His lips curled into a mocking grin as he watched Bardock struggle.
Bardock's eyes narrowed with determination. He couldn't let it end like this. Summoning every ounce of his remaining strength, he tried to charge his hand with energy. A faint, flickering light formed in his palm, barely more than a spark. He knew it was far from enough, but he had to try.
With a defiant roar, Bardock hurled the small ki blast at Dodoria. The energy sphere sailed through the air, crackling with power.
Dodoria's grin widened. He opened his mouth wide and, to Bardock's horror, swallowed the ki blast whole. The energy dissipated harmlessly, barely causing the brutish warrior to flinch.
Bardock's heart sank. He had poured everything he had left into that attack, and it had done nothing.
'Game over,' Bardock thought, his strength ebbing away. His vision blurred, the world around him darkening. He stumbled, his legs giving out beneath him, and fell to the ground with a thud.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Far away...
Paragus was furious. "Frieza, you cheat!"
Word had come to him that Frieza had decided to kill him and his son. The tyrant thought Paragus was too shrewd for his own good. However, the mustached Saiyan now knew of Frieza's intentions and was determined to act quickly.
He stormed through the corridors of their hideout, his mind racing with plans for their escape. Paragus knew they had little time. Frieza's forces could arrive at any moment.
"Broly!" he called out, his voice echoing off the walls. He found his son in their quarters, a small, makeshift room filled with minimal furnishings. Broly was already dozing off in one of their space pods, his innocent face contrasting with the turmoil around them.
Paragus' eyes narrowed as he watched his son sleep. He gently placed a hand on Broly's pod, his thoughts calculating. "You'll be the key to my vengeance," he muttered.
He quickly activated the space pod's systems, ensuring everything was in working order. Satisfied, he closed the pod's hatch and moved to the adjacent pod.
Paragus climbed into his own space pod, the interior cramped but familiar. He tapped a series of coordinates into the control panel, a location far from Frieza's reach. As the pod's systems hummed to life, he glanced back at Broly's pod one last time, ensuring his son was secure.
Taking a deep breath, Paragus steeled himself. The pods' engines roared, and with a jolt, they blasted off into space.
.
.
.
.. .................
One week later...
Vegeta had arrived on a backwater planet outside of Frieza's territory. The first thing he did was buy a cloak, using it to conceal his identity as he moved through the bustling streets. Conveniently, many of the planet's inhabitants also wore cloaks, allowing him to blend in seamlessly.
Keeping his son close, Vegeta found a quiet spot and sat down, purchasing an intergalactic newspaper. He opened it, bracing himself for the grim news he knew it would contain.
Each day, the newspaper brought a fresh wave of despair. Frieza and his army had decimated the Saiyans on Planet Vegeta, including his father. Only a few had managed to escape, and among them, his cowardly brothers who had fled without a fight.
Frieza had issued a decree: anyone who captured a member of the royal family, dead or alive, would be rewarded with a million acres on a five-star planet. A thousand acres would be granted for any ordinary Saiyan. As a result, each day brought reports of captured Saiyans, their executions described in gruesome detail.
Today, the headline announced the execution of Vegeta's brother, Tarble.
Days turned into weeks, and the names of fallen Saiyans appeared relentlessly: Turles, Paragus, Mooli, Bindi, Pinach. One by one, they were all hunted down and killed. Vegeta read it all in silence, his anger simmering beneath the surface.
His family members who had run away met the same fate. The newspaper chronicled each execution.
Now, only one Saiyan remained on the PTO's radar: Vegeta himself.
His photograph appeared in the newspaper's 'Wanted' section, his trademark smirk captured perfectly. With a growl, Vegeta ignited the newspaper with his ki. He dropped it to the ground, watching as the flames slowly consumed the paper, turning the grim news to ashes.
...
The next morning..
A stark headline blared from the newspaper: "Population of Planet Durth Wiped Out?" The words swam before Vegeta's eyes, each syllable a hammer blow against his chest. Durth... his wife's home. She had journeyed there to visit her parents while he was away on that ill-fated hunting trip with their son. A cold dread washed over him, leaving him utterly numb.
He leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed on the indifferent sky above. His face remained a mask of Saiyan control, yet within him, a tempest of grief began to brew. On the table before him, his infant son gurgled with laughter, the innocent sound a jarring counterpoint to the crushing despair threatening to engulf Vegeta. A bitter pang twisted in the prince's gut at the obliviousness of his child's joy.
The vibrant image of his wife, her laughter echoing in his memory, flickered in his mind. Those moments now seemed like fragments of a distant, cherished dream. A vise tightened around his chest as the brutal reality sank in: she was gone, swallowed by the same merciless cruelty that had extinguished his own world. The enormity of her loss settled upon his shoulders, a crushing weight.
For a fleeting, agonizing moment, Vegeta envied his son's innocence, the way the baby's laughter danced free from the shadows that haunted him. How he longed for that untainted existence, that blissful ignorance of the universe's darkness.
A sudden, earth-shattering explosion ripped through the quiet morning. Instinct took over. Vegeta snatched up his son and propelled himself into the air, his heart hammering against his ribs. Below, a plume of black smoke billowed from the very spot where they had been sitting.
"Hey! Monkey boy!" a voice bellowed.
Vegeta's head snapped towards the sound.
"Yeah! That's gotta be him," the man yelled to the gathering crowd.
Hostility radiated from the faces turning towards him. In an instant, a barrage of ki blasts rained upwards. Vegeta's aura flared, a protective shield of energy swirling around him. The blasts struck and dissipated harmlessly against its shimmering surface.
The raw grief in Vegeta's eyes hardened into cold resolve. He raised two fingers towards the hostile mass.
KADAAM!
A devastating explosion ripped through the space where the crowd had stood, tearing it apart.
Without a moment's hesitation, Vegeta shot off at full speed, the immediate need for escape momentarily eclipsing the crushing weight of his loss. Clutching his son tightly to his chest, he soared over the emerald expanse of the sea, his trajectory locked onto the hidden spacepod on the distant island. Each beat of his heart was a painful reminder of what he had lost, fueling his desperate need to survive – for his son, and for the faint hope of avenging those stolen from him.
Suddenly, a searing pain ripped through his shoulder as a ki blast slammed into him.
"AGH!"
The force of the impact staggered him, leaving a gaping, burning wound. He watched in horror as his son, ripped from his grasp, plummeted towards the churning water below.
Vegeta's heart seized in his chest. He whirled, his gaze burning with furious disbelief. "Zarbon... how dare you!"
Zarbon floated in the air with chilling composure, his arms crossed casually. With a slow, deliberate motion, he unfolded them and unleashed a focused beam of energy down into the water.
"No! My son!" Vegeta's eyes widened in dawning horror.
Zarbon's attack detonated in the sea, sending a violent geyser of water erupting upwards, drenching them both. Anguish contorted Vegeta's features, though whether the wetness on his face was his own tears or the sea spray, he couldn't distinguish. The depth of his loss was a physical agony. "No! My son!"
A cruel smirk stretched across Zarbon's face, relishing the profound despair he had inflicted.
Driven by a maelstrom of fury and helplessness, Vegeta lunged at Zarbon. Each strike was fueled by the raw, agonizing pain of losing his child, but Zarbon effortlessly parried and dodged every blow. "You're even more pathetic than your father, Vegeta."
Vegeta's rage made his attacks relentless, yet Zarbon's superior skill rendered them almost futile. A cruel taunt dripped from Zarbon's lips as he slammed a knee into Vegeta's stomach.
Vegeta gasped, doubling over in pain. Zarbon's hand shot out, grabbing his hair and yanking his head back roughly. Cruel satisfaction gleamed in Zarbon's eyes as he looked down at the seemingly defeated Saiyan prince.
But then, with a sudden surge of desperate resolve, Vegeta slammed his boot into Zarbon's abdomen. The teal-skinned alien gasped, clutching his gut as he stumbled backwards.
Seizing the momentary advantage, Vegeta unleashed a swift ki blast at Zarbon's face, obliterating his scouter. Without hesitation, he blasted away at full speed.
Knowing Zarbon wouldn't be down for long, Vegeta formulated a desperate plan. He fired a ki blast ahead of him, simultaneously dissipating his own energy signature and diving into the churning sea.
Recovering quickly, Zarbon tracked the fading trail of Vegeta's energy, which shimmered faintly against the sky. As he drew closer, the energy trail solidified, leading him directly to what he believed was his quarry.
Zarbon's eyes widened in shock as the truth dawned. Instead of Vegeta, it was a concentrated beam of pure energy hurtling towards him.
DISHOO!
Smoke billowed outwards from the impact. When it cleared, Zarbon stood unharmed, his expression a mask of furious frustration. "Damn you, Vegeta! You can't hide from me forever. I'll blast you out of that ocean!"
With renewed fury, Zarbon began to unleash a relentless barrage of ki blasts into the sea below, each explosion sending violent ripples across the water's surface.
...
Vegeta swam through the cold, suffocating darkness, a bitter smirk twisting his lips – more a shield against the pain than a genuine expression. The crushing pressure of the water mirrored the agonizing grief that gnawed at his core. Several meters behind, the muffled thud of Zarbon's distant energy blasts echoed through the water, a cruel reminder of the countless losses he had endured.
'Zarbon... you fool. Blind without your precious scouter,' Vegeta thought with a grim, hollow satisfaction.
Minutes stretched into an eternity as the explosions finally ceased. Exhausted and frustrated, Zarbon had given up his immediate search. Even beneath the waves, Vegeta could sense the alien's simmering rage, but it was a meaningless victory. This wasn't triumph; it was mere survival.
He had escaped, yes, but the word felt hollow, devoid of meaning when there was no one left waiting for him. The crushing weight of his son's absence – no, his son's death – pressed down on him with more force than the ocean above. The water couldn't drown the profound emptiness that had taken root within him. Grief clawed at his heart, twisting his bitter smirk into a grimace of raw pain. His son was gone, and with him, any remaining ember of warmth within Vegeta.
He propelled himself through the murky depths towards his hidden spacepod, the solitude a suffocating blanket. Each stroke through the water was slow, laborious, each movement a testament to his broken spirit. There was no one. Nothing. In the silent abyss, the proud Saiyan prince was left with only his sorrow – broken, bitter, and utterly alone.
Vegeta landed on the empty island under the harsh midday sun. The salty wind stung his face, but he ignored it. Desperation drove his every move. His heart hammered, each step heavy with failure. His ship, hidden among the sharp rocks, was his only way out. He scrambled inside, a cornered animal gasping for breath. Without a single look back, the pod blasted into space, leaving the bright sky for the cold, uncaring stars.
Years blurred together in a lonely cycle of running, hiding, and fighting. Planet after planet offered no safety, only more threats. Every creature he met, familiar or strange, wanted him dead. The proud Saiyan prince was now just prey, barely surviving.
A deep hopelessness settled in. Why keep running? Each day just brought him closer to the inevitable. Capture and death haunted him endlessly. Yet, a tiny spark remained: the dream of becoming a Super Saiyan, the power to save himself. But as the years passed, that hope felt like a lie. Had anyone even seen a Super Saiyan in a century? Was he chasing a ghost?
His father's stories of their Super Saiyan ancestor echoed in his mind. His father hadn't lied... had he? That small belief was all that kept Vegeta going through the loneliness, the battles, the constant pain of survival. It was the last part of himself he wouldn't let die.
Then came the brutal fight with Captain Ginyu. Ginyu was monstrously strong, and Vegeta barely survived, his body broken. Waking up in the healing chamber, every ache reminded him how far he'd fallen.
Frieza—the tyrant he loathed above all others—had spared him. Not out of mercy, but because Vegeta still had some use to him. The thought seared Vegeta's pride like acid. For seventeen years, he'd been Frieza's puppet, forced to bow to the monster who had stolen his life. Pride, honor—everything his father had instilled in him—had been buried under layers of bitterness and rage. In this life, only strength and survival mattered.
Seventeen years of servitude chipped away at him. But then, everything changed.
Raditz, a low-class warrior Vegeta barely tolerated, uncovered something: a diary once belonging to his father, Bardock. Inside, Raditz found a truth that shook him—he had a brother. A brother who had survived on a distant planet called Earth.
Vegeta was dismissive. Another low-class Saiyan hiding on some backwater planet? Laughable. When Raditz announced he was heading to Earth, Vegeta and Nappa barely paid attention. What threat could a forgotten, low-class warrior possibly pose?
They were wrong. Dead wrong.
...
"KAIOKEN... TIMES FOUR!" Kakarot's voice roared through the air, shattering the very ground beneath them.
Vegeta's eyes widened as his Galick Gun was obliterated, the blue beam slamming into him like a freight train. His body screamed in agony as he was lifted upwards, flesh burning under the relentless energy. The pain was unbearable, his pride torn to shreds along with his body.
"NOOO!" Vegeta howled, his voice raw with desperation. With a final surge of will, he broke free, hovering in the air—battered, bloodied, but not broken.
"NO!" His voice trembled with fury, a fury aimed not at Kakarot, but at himself. "He's a low-class dog! He should be nothing compared to me!"
...
He jolted awake, drenched in cold sweat, the memory of that defeat gnawing at him like a wound that refused to heal. His pride, his birthright, his future—all of it had been ripped away.
All that remained was revenge. Revenge on Frieza, the tyrant who had stolen his life. Revenge on Kakarot, the low-class warrior who had shattered his pride.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Power levels-
Bardock: 9,055
Nappa (young): 12,000
Nappa (during fight on Earth): 6000 (past his prime, age: 65)
Zator: 8,940
Paragus: 3,200
King Vegeta: 45,000
Prince Vegeta (20 years old): 9,000
Prince Vegeta (fight on Earth): 16,000
Raditz (teen): 422
Raditz (fight on Earth): 1,100
Frieza soldiers: ranging from 250 to 1,450
Adult Saiyans: ranging from 440 to 3,000
Frieza elite soldiers (eg: crew members of Zarbon and Dodoria): ranging from 1,450 to 4,000
Cui, Dodoria, Zarbon, Ginyu Force, Frieza: ?