The shrill ship alert pierced Vitelli's consciousness like an icy steel needle, yanking him brutally out of a deep hibernation that had lasted half a year.
The lid of the pod slid open slowly. Cold air rushed in, carrying the ship's familiar scent of metal and recycled fluid.
He opened his eyes, adjusting to the dim light. The first thing he saw was Vegeta beside him, his own pod having opened as well, the prince struggling to sit up.
"You bastard!"
Vegeta's furious eyes snapped onto Vitelli at once, burning with the rage and provocation he'd bottled up for six months. Sleep clearly hadn't soothed the humiliation of being knocked out by Vitelli's palm before departure.
Vitelli merely glanced at him, lips curling into the faintest, almost mocking smile—as if looking at a child throwing a tantrum—then stepped out of the pod.
He couldn't be bothered to waste words. His footsteps were steady as he moved past Vegeta, who was still simmering, and headed straight for the control area.
Being ignored completely, Vegeta let out a heavy "Hmph." His little face flushed red with anger, clenched fists crackling with bone-grinding tension.
"Just wait… once this mission's done, I'll make you pay when we get back!" he roared inwardly, turning shame into fuel.
Inside the control cabin, Raditz was already busy at the console. The screen displayed Sofu Planet's complex atmospheric data and a dense web of defensive network markers.
Nappa, meanwhile, clumsily squeezed himself into a spherical one-man pod.
"Prince Vegeta! Vitelli! You two are awake!"
Raditz spotted them and hurried over, voice carrying a trace of nervousness.
"The ship can only stay in a safe orbit outside Sofu's atmosphere. The planet has powerful defense systems and automated turrets. A large ship's too big a target—if we force entry, we'll get concentrated fire instantly! We have to go down in single-pilot pods!"
Vegeta frowned hard, clearly disgusted by such sneaking around. "We can't just land? They're just a bunch of bugs. You're making this way too complicated!"
Vitelli also studied the data with mild curiosity. Saiyans favored brute-force entry; missions that required tactics like this were rare.
Raditz quickly explained, "This is detailed intel from Frieza's information division. Sofu's individuals aren't strong, but their tech is advanced—especially their planetary defense grid. One-man pods have weak energy signatures and small frames. It's the only way to bypass the main fire zones and land safely."
He pulled up several preset landing coordinates. "We should move fast. If we delay, they might adjust their scan parameters."
Watching Raditz switch interfaces and analyze streams of data so fluently, Vitelli raised a brow and joked, "Raditz, you're pretty talented at this. If Vegeta ever stops needing you as a guard, maybe you should switch careers—mechanical engineer, tech developer. Might have a brighter future than being a warrior."
Raditz froze mid-operation, looking dumbfounded. "Huh? Vitelli! I'm just… fiddling with the ship a bit. What's that supposed to mean? Are you saying I'm gonna lose my combat status someday?"
He felt strangely insulted.
Vegeta didn't care about any of that. He only wanted to step on the planet and vent his rage through destruction.
"Move! What're you dawdling for?" he barked, striding to his pod. The hatch hissed shut.
Vitelli shrugged and climbed into his assigned pod as well.
With a light tremor and a low engine hum, four metal spheres detached from the mothership and streaked downward like four comets, plunging toward the pale-yellow world wrapped in atmosphere below.
On Sofu's surface, the planetary defense command center was already in utter chaos.
"Alert! Alert! High-energy reactions detected! Confirmed Frieza-army standard single-pilot pods breaching the outer grid—four units! Coordinates locked! Rapid descent!"
Screeching alarms and flashing red lights filled the hall.
In the lavish but panic-soaked royal palace, the king paced anxiously. When an aide enlarged the live feed of the pods, the king's face went white as paper.
"F-Frieza's army… it's really them!!" the aide's voice shook with despair.
"Quick!!" the king screamed hoarsely. "All ground troops! Robot corps! Highest alert! Shoot them down! Whatever it takes!!"
When Vitelli's pod punched through the clouds and landed in a preselected open field, he was greeted by Sofu soldiers already in formation and a robot legion gleaming with cold metal. Dense energy beams poured down like a storm!
They splashed against Vitelli's hardened body like raindrops on stone, raising only faint ripples and leaving not a single mark.
"Tch. Is this supposed to tickle me?"
Vitelli clicked his tongue, expression calm. He didn't bother with fancy techniques—just raised one hand casually, fingers splayed.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Ping-pong-sized white ki shots burst from his fingertips in a machine-gun spray—precise, efficient. Each one struck a robot's core dead on.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions chained together, clearing dozens of meters around him in an instant. Wreckage and scorched parts scattered everywhere.
He turned toward the distance, where Vegeta and the others were likewise surrounded—though they were happily blasting everything to pieces, laughing loudly in the joy of dominance. Vitelli's voice cut through the noise.
"Vegeta, splitting up is more efficient. I'll handle these tin cans. You three go wipe resistance elsewhere."
Before the last word ended, he fired another dense barrage at a farther robot cluster, drawing more fire.
Then he kicked off the ground. A blue streak shot away in the opposite direction from Vegeta's team, dragging a long tail of pursuing robots behind him.
Once he'd lured the bulk of them deep into a maze of abandoned factories, Vitelli stopped.
He reached up, cleanly tore off the latest Frieza-army scouter from his ear, and crushed it in his palm. It flared into a brief spark and died.
"Alright… plan starts now."
His eyes sharpened. He spread his hands before his chest in a classic charging stance.
The ki inside him, like a sleeping volcano, ignited instantly. A powerful aura erupted, whipping dust off the ground. He deliberately controlled the output, stabilizing his aura around 5,000 on scouter standards—exactly the "full power" he'd been pretending to have.
"Ha—!!"
With a deep roar, a thick, dazzling golden beam blasted from both hands. Like a flood of gold, it swept across every robot in sight.
Rumble—BOOOOM!!!
A deafening chain of explosions swallowed everything. Heavy alloy armor, delicate circuitry—under raw energy they were as fragile as paper.
Within seconds, when the light faded, only a massive smoking crater remained, along with warped metal slag scattered everywhere. Hundreds of robots and the entire factory block had been erased into nothing.
Vitelli nodded in satisfaction. His energy control was still solid.
He turned his gaze to the grandest complex in the distance—Sofu's royal palace.
His sharp sensing told him that the few lifeforms there with power readings above a thousand were gathered in that place.
"Time to do the real job."
He lifted into the air, then became a blue lightning bolt tearing through the sky, sonic booms cracking behind him as he shot toward the palace.
Vitelli descended like a demon onto the palace plaza, casually flicking away the charging guard captain like swatting a fly.
Sirens screamed. The last line of resistance—so-called "experts" with power barely approaching two thousand—rushed in like moths to flame.
Vitelli didn't even move his feet. He merely raised his hand, fingers open.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
Countless small ki blasts flew like a living swarm, each one locking onto a target.
There were no screams—only dull bursts and the hiss of flesh vaporizing. In a single breath, the plaza went quiet, thick with the stench of blood and char. Flickers of fire remained.
"Prince-style fighting really is handy," he muttered, stepping calmly through the carnage toward the sealed inner doors of supreme authority.
Meanwhile, on another scorched battlefield…
"HAHAHAHA!!"
Vegeta floated in the air, watching Sofu troops crumble under his relentless bombardment. The frustration in his chest finally drained away.
This absolute, effortless domination—this was the treatment a Saiyan prince deserved.
Nappa and Raditz hovered behind him, faces full of awe and envy.
"Prince Vegeta is having the time of his life! These weaklings can't even fight back!" Raditz said.
Beep-beep-beep—!
At the height of Vegeta's smug satisfaction, his scouter suddenly shrieked with urgent alarms.
His grin froze. His face twisted in shock.
A red number on the lens was climbing wildly.
15,000… 18,000… 21,000… 23,300!
It stopped at the blinding figure 23,300.
"Twenty-three thousand?! Who is it?!" Vegeta snapped his head up, eyes locked on the sky. A far stronger, faintly malicious ki was plummeting down at terrifying speed.
A fireball tore through Sofu's pale atmosphere, whistling sharply, dropping straight toward Vegeta's position. The shape—was unmistakably a Frieza-army spherical pod.
"Frieza's people?"
Vegeta frowned, halted his slaughter, and crossed his arms midair, watching coldly.
Nappa and Raditz tensed beside him.
With a hiss of pressurized gas, the pod hatch slid open.
A huge, obese figure with disgusting pink skin squeezed out with a smug laugh.
Dodoria.
He landed, making the ground tremble.
His beady, sleazy eyes swept across the trio, lingering on Vegeta. "Heh-heh-heh," he laughed gratingly, voice dripping with arrogant condescension.
"Oh ho ho, isn't this our honorable Saiyan prince? First time meeting. I'm Dodoria—Lord Frieza's most capable, most loyal, and strongest aide!"
He puffed out his belly. "By Lord Frieza's order, I've come to assist you in completing this mission."
Vegeta's face immediately filled with open disgust. "Hmph. Assist? I need help from a lapdog like you? Get back on your ship. For Frieza's sake I'll spare you this time. Don't stand in my way."
Dodoria's smile didn't move, but a chill flashed in his eyes. He adjusted his own scouter as if casually and looked over Nappa and Raditz.
"Oh~ a worthless trash with barely 1,500." He glanced at Raditz, who went pale and stumbled back half a step. "And this one… 4,300? Not bad."
Then his gaze returned to Vegeta. The scouter shrieked even harder.
"And you, Prince Vegeta…" Dodoria's fake grin cracked and vanished. Shock flooded his face. His voice shot up. "Twenty-thousand?! That's impossible! Intel said you were barely over three thousand! How is this possible?!"
Vegeta lifted his chin even higher, arrogance dripping. "You think you can measure me? Two-thousand? That's just my starting point. Frieza's intel is outdated. Go back and tell him: the legendary Super Saiyan has appeared—and it's me! Super Vegeta—da!!"
Dodoria's shock turned to rage instantly.
Frieza hated the Super Saiyan legend more than anything.
This stupid monkey dared to provoke him?!
"Heh-heh-heh… you idiot Saiyan ape!"
Dodoria screeched as his fat body burst forward at impossible speed.
"Twenty-thousand power and you think you can mock Lord Frieza's majesty? That Frieza sent me to 'teach' you was brilliant! Today I'll show you how many stronger beings serve Lord Frieza!"
His massive gloved fist shot out like a cannonball, shrieking through the air for Vegeta's small, arrogant face.
BAM—!!!
A thundering impact.
Vegeta hadn't expected such a sudden, brutal strike. He barely tilted his head before the punch slammed into his cheek.
The force exploded. Vegeta flew like a snapped kite, screaming as he crashed through a half-ruined building, dust erupting sky-high.
"Prince Vegeta!!"
Nappa and Raditz shouted in horror. But with that 23,000 blaring on the lenses, their legs felt nailed to the ground. The gap was too huge—they didn't dare move.
"Cough… pff!"
Vegeta struggled out of rubble, spitting blood. Half his face was swelling grotesquely. Pain and humiliation ignited every spark of fury in his body.
"You… you trash!!!!" his voice warped with rage. "You dared… like Vitelli… to sneak-attack me!!"
"HAAAAAAA—!!!"
Vegeta's Saiyan blood burned under the shame. He swung his arms wildly, ki blasts pouring out like rain, forming a lethal barrage that drowned Dodoria.
"Hmph. Child's play!"
Dodoria was surprised by Vegeta's burst, but with higher power he slapped and blocked the blasts in a blur, detonating them in midair.
"Power difference is power difference! An ape is still an ape!"
He lunged in instantly, appearing before Vegeta and driving a crushing side-kick into his chest.
Crack—!
A clear bone-fracture sound.
"Ugh—!" Vegeta screamed and flew back again, organs twisting in agony.
"See?! This is the gap!" Dodoria hovered above, gloating cruelly. "Against absolute power, your pathetic Super Saiyan dream is—"
He cut off.
Because from the rubble below, something exploded upward.
Boom—!!!
A ferocious, scorching, destructive aura erupted like a volcanic blast.
A white flame-like ki surged skyward around Vegeta. His hair stood on end in the storm of energy, violent currents snapping around him.
A crushing pressure swallowed the area.
"AAAAAA—!!!"
Vegeta rose slowly within the white blaze, eyes bloodshot, locked on Dodoria like a demon, voice hoarse:
"You… trash!!!!"
The scouter numbers went insane.
21,000… 23,000… 24,000… 25,000!!!
"W-what?!" Dodoria's grin shattered into terror. "Twenty-five thousand?! Impossible!!!"
"Die!"
Vegeta moved like a bolt of lightning, appearing in front of Dodoria before he could blink.
BAM! A heavy punch with 25,000 power smashed into Dodoria's belly.
"Guh!" Dodoria's eyes bulged. He vomited blood and bile, folding in agony.
Vegeta didn't stop. He spun, driving a full-force whip kick into Dodoria's fat face.
KRAAACK—!!!
A sickening snap. Dodoria's neck twisted at a horrific angle. Teeth and saliva sprayed out. His huge body shot away like a pink meteor, carving a hundred-meter trench before slamming into the earth and going still, dust rolling outward.
"Ha… ha… ha…"
The white aura vanished as quickly as it came.
Vegeta floated there, panting violently. His armor was torn, his chest ached, half his face looked like a steamed bun.
But his eyes blazed with a victor's arrogance.
"S-so strong! Prince Vegeta is amazing!" Nappa gaped, worshipful. "A-are you really the legendary Super Saiyan?!"
Raditz stared, stunned, whispering, "The legend… it's real?"
Vegeta dropped to the trench edge, looking down at Dodoria—bloodied, face warped, limp like a dead dog. A painful, twisted grin spread across his lips.
He barked at Nappa, voice hoarse but absolute:
"Nappa! Go. Finish this eyesore."
The immense palace doors buckled inward as if struck by an invisible hammer, flying apart.
Inside, the Sofu king slumped on his ornate throne, drained of color, shaking like a leaf.
A guard barely got out "Your Majesty, run—" before a sudden beam punched through his heart. He crumpled.
Vitelli stood in the doorway. In the king's eyes he looked like death itself.
"You're the king of this planet?" Vitelli asked with a smile the king could only see as demonic.
"Y-yes! Y-yes, honored sir… w-what do you want…?" The king stuttered, terror crushing his will.
Vitelli nodded, satisfied with the "know your place" attitude. He scanned the room, tore down a decorative rope, looped a slipknot around the king's neck.
"Show me the way," Vitelli said evenly. "Take me to where you keep your spacecraft."
Like a puppet on a string, the king led him swiftly to a hidden, heavily guarded spaceport behind the palace.
Under a massive dome sat several sleek ships—far more stylish than Frieza's mass-produced disks.
Vitelli's eyes locked onto one instantly: silver-gray, streamlined, powerful. Sharp wings jutted from the sides, and four massive thruster arrays lined the rear. It looked like something out of Earth sci-fi—cooler than anything on Planet Vegeta.
"That one."
He pointed. "Load it with food, fuel it up, and set the destination to a planet called Earth."
"Huh?" The scientists stared at their strangely calm king, unsure whether to obey.
Vitelli glanced at him. The king immediately bellowed at the engineers, "What are you waiting for?! Do as the lord says! Fill the tanks! Load the food! Set course—Earth!"
The engineers snapped into motion, scrambling to comply.
Vitelli tugged the rope like walking a dog and waited off to the side.
They were fast. Soon an engineer ran up, sweating.
"L-lord! The ship is ready! Fuel is full—enough for over twenty-five years of continuous travel! Food stores are loaded! Hibernation pod systems are perfect, energy stable for long-term stasis! Course is set: Earth, the third planet of the Solar System on a spiral arm of the North Galaxy."
He hesitated, then added carefully, "But… lord, Sofu is extremely far from Earth. At this ship's top speed… one-way travel will take… ten years."
"Ten years?" Vitelli frowned. That was far beyond what he'd expected. He'd assumed Sofu tech meant faster ships.
"Lord, please forgive us!" The chief engineer and king nearly knelt. "Our planet focused on robots and automated defenses. Interstellar travel… isn't our strongest field. This 'King of Sofu' ship is our best. Ten years is the fastest it can do!"
The king nodded frantically.
Vitelli fell silent a few seconds, then sighed.
Ten years… long, but still better than staying on Planet Vegeta. And he'd sleep through it anyway.
"Fine. Ten years it is. The hibernation pod's reliable?"
"Absolutely! Our stasis systems are one of our few proud technologies—mature and stable. With uninterrupted energy, it can keep someone asleep for a hundred years easy!"
Vitelli nodded. He dragged the king back toward the engineers.
Seeing their terrified eyes, Vitelli wore a faintly apologetic expression—though his gaze was cold.
"Sorry about this," he said softly, like stating a fact.
His right hand snapped up, palm aimed at them.
BOOOOM—!!!
A huge, tightly condensed golden blast erupted—more terrifying than the one he'd used on the robots. Light swallowed their screaming faces.
No cries lasted. No struggle remained. The engineers, the floor beneath them—everything vaporized instantly, leaving a smooth-edged molten crater and a thin curl of smoke.
The king watched, wet himself, and collapsed, choking on breathless horror.
Vitelli loosened the rope and looked down at him calmly.
"Relax. I said I wouldn't kill you, and I won't. But…"
He swept a glance over the empty port.
"I suggest you run. You know Frieza's methods. Their plan is to wipe out every life on this planet. If you stay, you die. That's all. Whether you listen is up to you. Bye."
He turned away from the shattered king and strode toward the silver battleship.
The heavy hatch slid open and shut behind him.
"Alright. Departing—Advance Three!!!"
Engines rumbled deep and strong. Blue exhaust flared.
The battleship glided out of its berth, aligned its nose to the star-dark void.
Then the main thrusters ignited in a blaze.
BOOOOM—!!!
The ship shot upward like a silver beast released, tearing through Sofu's sky and atmosphere, becoming a brilliant streak that plunged into the boundless black.
On the cold floor, the king stared hollowly at the ship's vanishing trail. Vitelli's final words echoed like a curse.
After a long moment, a desperate will to live drowned his terror. He staggered up and screamed into the empty port:
"Guards! Someone! Prepare my ship—now! Destination… destination, Galactic Patrol Headquarters!!"
Vegeta sat on a scorched boulder, gnawing on some strange but energy-rich local food Raditz had scavenged from a ruined town.
His armor was torn, cheeks scratched, but his mind was blazing with exhilaration.
The fight with Dodoria had been rough, but he'd won. The moment his power hit 25,000… he was drunk on it.
Then he felt something. He shot his gaze up past the thin atmosphere, locking onto a silver speck racing away at the horizon—an escaping ship.
Vegeta frowned. A strange familiarity tugged at him, as if something he knew was inside that craft… but he shook it off.
Impossible. Vitelli wouldn't leave alone. Once Nappa and Raditz began their massacre, countless ships had fled Sofu like startled birds. They'd blown up a few at first, then stopped caring—too many.
"Hmph. Just another bug trying to run."
He dismissed it and went back to eating.
Sooner or later, once they cleared the cities and resistance, Vitelli would show up. Then Vegeta would finally beat him and prove who the real genius was.
In the deep, silent, freezing universe, Vitelli's ship sailed steadily along its course toward the distant Solar System.
Inside, the computer lights blinked rhythmically, logging travel data.
Vitelli lay in a hibernation pod filled with pale-blue nutrient fluid. A transparent panel displayed a clear countdown:
[Wake-Up Countdown: 9 years 11 months 29 days 22 hours 59 minutes…]
His breathing was smooth and slow. The system had pushed him into deep physiological stasis; cell activity sank to near zero, time seeming to freeze around him.
The ship cruised across a relatively empty star-sector.
Suddenly, the radar picked up a faint blip—a pebble-sized meteor fragment drifting on a path almost perpendicular to the ship's route.
Their vectors created an extremely tiny "intersection" in the vast mechanics of space.
A collision sound—so faint it should not have been heard in vacuum—tapped against the outer hull.
The impact point sat on the ship's side near a connector for the hibernation pod's energy line.
The force was negligible, leaving no visible dent in the super-alloy shell.
Yet in that instant, a delicate circuit node responsible for receiving wake-up commands suffered a microscopic disturbance.
Like dust dropped into a still lake, that disturbance rippled through the electronics, triggering a subtle chain reaction.
On the pod's panel, the countdown digits—so steady before—stopped abruptly at [9 years 11 months 29 days].
The countdown… halted.
Inside, Vitelli remained sunk in the deepest sleep, unaware of the impact, unaware that time was no longer moving for him. His face stayed peaceful, as if dreaming of power and the future.
The ship faithfully followed its final orders, continuing toward its original coordinates. Engines glowed steadily in the eternal dark.
Only the countdown—the promise of return—was frozen forever at the moment of departure.
The ship kept flying, deeper into the black.