Bringer of Death

Tournament Saga - Part 2: Serenity

Tournament Saga - Part 2: Serenity

Broly's white, wild grin widened. His footsteps crushed rock and ground beneath him. Suddenly, after a brief pause, Broly leapt forward, hurling his entire body directly at the prince. "As you wish, MY LORD!"

Like a freight train, Broly's body slammed into Vegeta, immediately bowling him over and flinging him into a wall of rock. The cliff face buckled and gave way as the prince formed his own cavern inside. It was all immediately dark, hundreds of tons of rock over his head. The blue-haired Saiyan had unleashed a brutal first attack and somehow gotten the best of him.

"What's wrong, little prince?" Broly yelled from outside the large rocky structure.

Vegeta, hearing the taunt, shut his eyes and concentrated. His mind flashed back to before the battle...

Earlier, in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber

"FINAL FLASH!"

Vegeta's most powerful beam erupted out of his hands, turning the air into white-hot plasma as it rocketed toward the misty, formless horizon. It was more intense than ever...but it only lasted for a few seconds before his power failed him. He gasped for breath as the flow of energy dropped and then disappeared. Moments later, his body regressed from the bulky ascended form into his ordinary transformation, and then into his base form. He dropped to the ground and fell to one knee, panting. Though he had pushed his power higher than ever before, it had left him completely drained and exhausted.

The farther out he ventured into the mind-numbing whiteness of the chamber, the more the atmosphere and gravity fluctuated. Here, several miles from the entrance where he could feel Trunks soundly sleeping, the gravity was bone-crushingly heavy...more than one hundred times that of planet Vegeta. In his base form, it was all he could do to stand. Unlike at the entrance, the air here was thick. But it was hard to breathe; it didn't have much oxygen.

He didn't know why he was so quickly exhausted by the bulked-up ascended state. Initially, when he had first developed the form, it had been easy to fight for what seemed like hours without any trouble. With a little practice, powering up had become as natural as breathing...and each time he powered back down, he held on to a little more power in his ordinary transformed state. For a time, it had seemed that there was no limit to his potential.

But now, in the crushing embrace of this hellish room, the limits of the ascended state were all too obvious. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he pushed, his body simply refused to endure his transformation.

The prince swore viciously as he pushed himself up under the unbelievable weight of the chamber's gravity. No matter how angry he got, no matter how much rage he poured forth, it simply wasn't enough. Merely transforming was exhausting; on several occasions, he hadn't been able to go Super Saiyan again for days at a time after pushing himself to his limits.

He stood, every muscle straining. "There must be a way. I have the power; I can feel it. It's just my damned, worthless body—it utterly refuses to reach out and grasp the strength that is my birthright! If only I could force myself to stay transformed no matter how my fickle bones and muscles felt...if only I was stronger!"

That was the problem, he was sure of it. Despite the depths of his desire, his body simply couldn't contain the massive flow of energy he was forcing into it. He needed a way to push through, a way to ignore the pain and simply hold out. If he could do that, he thought, he would no longer be limited by the ever-decreasing time limit of the ascended state.

He clenched his muscles even tighter, summoning every ounce of furious rage he had. His mind turned to the years as Frieza's slave, the longing to be free. He recalled every time he had fought a stronger opponent and risen to the occasion, toppling tyrants and shattering his own limits again and again. His anger and pride welled up within him, filling him with emotion and urging his aching body onward and upward.