Dust peeled away from the crater's lip as Vegeta straightened to his full height. The desert heat pressed down, heavy, mortal. He breathed it in anyway, cataloguing the weight, the scent, the insolence of a world that had not asked permission to exist.
Far away, the earth trembled with Nappa's landing. A second plume rose on the horizon, ridiculous and perfect—subtlety was a word Nappa had never paid rent to.
The scouter ticked alive, green numbers spiking, chattering in a language only cowards relied on. Five signatures, moving fast. Weak, but not absent. The kind of weak that thought training could outrun blood.
The System intruded with the precision of scripture:
[Threat Scan]Approaching: 5 combatants— Average PL: 1,500–2,000— Outlier: Piccolo (PL ~3,500)Recommendation:Test controlled brink fights. Do not fully commit.Optional Reward: Zenkai Growth Catalyst (2% efficiency boost).
Vegeta smirked. Even my corrections get graded now.
He let his aura bleed out just enough to touch the sand. The ground hissed as heat coiled upward, not from fire but from sheer contempt forced into atoms.
The first to crest the ridge was green-skinned, eyes hard, cloak tearing in the wind—Piccolo. Behind him, a scatter of humans: one bald and disciplined (Tien), one bald and jittering (Krillin), one with scars that failed to make him look dangerous (Yamcha), and a pale child-thing clinging like punctuation (Chiaotzu).
They slowed, wary. Not cowards, not quite. Just men who understood, dimly, that the figure standing in the crater was not a problem but a verdict.
Piccolo's voice cut the silence. "You're not Raditz."
"No," Vegeta said, the word crisp as glass. "Raditz was a servant. I am the reason masters exist."
Krillin clenched his fists. "Doesn't matter who you are—we're not letting you—"
"—let," Vegeta repeated, amused. "As if the ant allows the boot to step where it pleases."
The scouter chimed, petty, eager.
[Analysis Update]Recommendation: Target the Namek first. Superior PL. Disrupts group morale.Optional: Execute a demonstration strike (Reward: +0.5% Ki Control).
Piccolo bared his teeth. "You talk too much."
Vegeta vanished. The sand where he had stood slumped in confusion. He reappeared behind Piccolo, two fingers resting lightly against the Namek's spine, just above the heart.
"True," Vegeta whispered. "But I do it beautifully."
Piccolo spun, elbow cutting air where Vegeta had been. Vegeta leaned, not dodging so much as deciding the strike belonged elsewhere. His knee drove up, not fast, but inevitable. It caught Piccolo under the ribs, lifting him from the ground and throwing him into the ridge. Rock split with a sound like bone.
Tien shouted, hands already flashing into a tri-beam stance. Krillin launched forward, ki blazing in a sphere too bright for his own shadow. Yamcha and Chiaotzu followed, courage imitating strategy.
Vegeta raised one hand, palm open, and caught Krillin's blast. The energy writhed, protesting, but his fingers closed like a cage. He crushed it to nothing, dusting his gloves with sparks.
"Good form," he said mildly. "Bad arithmetic."
Tien screamed, tri-beam roaring from his palms. The desert floor cratered deeper, sand liquefying into glass under the force. Smoke veiled everything, hiding Vegeta, hiding the sun.
When it cleared, Vegeta was still standing. Harnesses of dust hung around him like broken jewelry. His boots sank half an inch deeper into the sand. That was all.
"You'll forgive me if I don't applaud," he said.
The System purred.
[Controlled Brink Fight Engaged]Vital Strain: +6%Projected Gain (Post-Recovery): +1,200 PL
Vegeta's smile sharpened. Good. Pain as investment. Efficiency as interest.
Yamcha lunged, wolf fang fist snapping. Vegeta caught his wrist mid-strike, twisted, and heard the joint surrender with a noise that cut even Krillin's shout short.
"Names like yours," Vegeta murmured, "are better suited to pets." He threw Yamcha's body into Chiaotzu with casual boredom.
Piccolo pulled himself from rubble, blood bright against green skin, aura flaring like a promise. "You'll pay for that."
"I always do," Vegeta said, and blurred forward again.
Piccolo roared, the sound guttural, more beast than strategist, and his aura snapped wide, burning violet against the sky.
He rushed him.
Vegeta let him come. He even stepped forward to meet it, savoring the clash of bone and will. Piccolo's fist drove like a spear toward his jaw, but Vegeta tilted, cheek brushing past knuckles, breath warm against the Namek's skin. He drove his elbow down into Piccolo's shoulder. Muscle screamed. Piccolo grunted but didn't fold, spinning low, leg sweeping.
The sand bucked under the blow.
Vegeta hopped lightly over it, boots leaving no crater where physics begged for one.
"Better," he admitted. "But still not mine."
He hammered a palm into Piccolo's chest. The Namek spat blood and skidded a hundred feet before planting one knee in the sand.
Tien charged next, tri-beam shaping again, but Vegeta's aura flared and his voice cut like steel. "Don't."
Tien froze, body betraying him. Sweat slicked his temple, but his ki trembled all the same. He wanted to move, but his instincts had already taken the order as law.
Krillin darted around, brave enough to ignore fear, throwing a disc of spinning ki so sharp the desert itself seemed to flinch. The air howled where it cut.
Vegeta caught it. Two fingers. He stopped its spin, ki screaming in protest before he flicked it back.
Krillin dove. Sand burned his scalp as the disc carved the ridge behind him into halves.
"Creative," Vegeta said. "Still math without numbers."
The System chimed, merciless.
[Enemy Technique Acquired]Destructo Disc — 40% proficiency (Upgradeable).Note: Technique ignores base defense. Risk level: Moderate.
Vegeta's eyes glinted. Now that's useful.
Piccolo was already rising again, chest heaving, cape torn. His eyes locked on Vegeta with the heat of someone who had failed too many times to stop trying.
"You won't leave this planet alive," Piccolo said.
"Alive?" Vegeta stepped closer, calm as sunrise. "Namekian, I plan to leave this planet ascended. Your lives are just the weights I stack to get there."
He vanished. Appeared behind Tien. Backhanded him into the ground, sand exploding upward as his body drilled into it.
Chiaotzu shrieked, tiny hands glowing, and launched himself at Vegeta's back.
The impact never came.
Vegeta didn't move—his tail did. It uncoiled and whipped backward, wrapping Chiaotzu's body mid-flight. The childlike fighter yelped as the tail constricted, squeezing ribs until cracks popped like knuckles.
"Not even worth a bootprint," Vegeta said. He flicked his tail and flung the body aside, a doll discarded by a bored child.
Piccolo struck again, a blast of ki exploding from his palms. It washed the crater in white.
For a heartbeat, even Vegeta disappeared in the blaze.
Krillin's chest surged with hope. "Did it—"
The smoke split. Vegeta walked through, aura untouched, eyes glowing like cold suns. He held a sphere of ki in one hand, rolling it between fingers like a coin.
"Impressive effort," he said softly. "Wrong audience."
He flicked the sphere. It screamed across the sand, curving with impossible precision toward Yamcha.
Krillin threw himself in front of it, desperate. The impact swallowed him, blasting him into the ridge with enough force to leave a crater of his own.
The System whispered.
[Brink State Induced — Target: Krillin]Estimated PL growth if healed: +400–600.Note: Zenkai observed in allies as well. Monitoring.
Vegeta's eyebrows rose. "Interesting."
Piccolo snarled, charging one last time, desperation written in every motion. Vegeta let him come, just to measure how far a desperate man could stretch. The answer was not far enough.
Vegeta met him head-on, fist to fist. For a fraction of a second, the clash lit the desert like a new sun.
When the light faded, Piccolo was on his knees, blood spilling from his mouth, his arm bent wrong.
Vegeta stood untouched.
"Better than the others," he admitted. "But still only better among insects."
The System chimed again.
[Controlled Brink Fight Complete]Vital Strain: +12%Projected Gain (Post-Recovery): +2,400 PLBonus: Skill Node Unlocked — Royal Pressure (Passive intimidation, 5% chance to stagger weaker foes).
Vegeta chuckled low in his chest. "Yes. That will do."
The desert went quiet. Only Piccolo still moved, dragging himself upright on shaking legs.
"You… won't… win…"
Vegeta stepped forward, tail swaying. "I already have."
Above them, the sky cracked with thunder. Far across the desert, another plume of dust rose — Nappa had entered the board.
Vegeta smiled thinly. "And now the real lesson begins."