"Finally."
Five endless days in that cramped pod. Five days of nothing but pain, gravity, and rage.
To Vegeta, it had felt like five years.
He couldn't train like Kakarot no endless Senzu Beans to fix shattered bones and torn organs. Every near-death breakthrough had to be calculated down to the heartbeat. Over ten times he had danced on the edge of oblivion, forcing Zenkai after Zenkai.
No scouter numbers. He didn't need them.
He could feel the power coiling inside him like a living storm.
Forty-something thousand? Forty-eight? Forty-nine? Close enough to fifty that the exact figure no longer mattered.
One careless full-power flare-up inside the pod and every scouter on Namek would have screamed his position straight to Frieza. Instant death warrant.
Low profile until the blade was sharp enough to cut the lizard's throat. That was the rule.
Now, hovering high above Namek's jade oceans, Vegeta closed his eyes and spread his ki sense across the planet like a net.
Frieza's cold, bottomless signature far to the southwest.
Dodoria's spiky, brutish aura.
Zarbon's sleek, poisonous one.
Hundreds of weaker soldiers swarming like flies.
And beneath them all… the faint, dying flickers of Namekian life.
Vegeta's lips peeled back into a feral grin.
Nail's 42,000? He could crush it without breaking a sweat.
Only one presence on the entire planet still made his survival instincts scream.
Frieza.
Perfect.
…
Twenty-five thousand kilometers away.
Another Namekian village burned.
Smoke rose in lazy spirals from dome-shaped houses. Green blood stained the grass.
Frieza floated above the carnage in his hover-pod, sipping wine, bored.
Dodoria lumbered out of a half-collapsed hut, cradling a four-star Dragon Ball the size of a basketball.
"Third one, Lord Frieza."
Two days. Three balls.
Pathetic efficiency, but Frieza wasn't angry. Anger required effort.
"Next village," he said lazily, swirling the crimson liquid. "I'm starting to enjoy this little scavenger hunt."
Zarbon stepped forward, scouter flashing. "Lord Frieza, new report. Vegeta's pod entered atmosphere twelve minutes ago earlier than projected. His current location, however, is untraceable. The scouters register nothing."
Frieza's tail stopped mid-swig.
"Oh? Already here?" A slow, delighted smile spread across his face. "And hiding his power. How clever of the little monkey."
Two days ago he had planned to reduce Namek to cosmic dust the moment Vegeta arrived just to watch the prince's dreams die with the planet.
Now the game had changed.
"These Namekians are more stubborn than I expected," Frieza mused, voice dripping with amusement. "But this is much better. Let the monkey scurry. Let him believe he still has a chance."
He raised his glass in a mock toast to the empty sky.
"Then, when he finally crawls out of whatever hole he's hiding in, I'll crush that hope myself. Slowly."
His laughter echoed across the smoking ruins light, musical, and utterly devoid of mercy.
"Heh… heh… heh… heh… heh~~!"