(Two Years Ago)
"Hmph. Trash!" With a wave of his arm, Vegeta blasted dozens of the alien militia in front of him to dust, completely ignoring the energy weapons that were currently shooting bolts of compressed plasma at him.
Beside him, Nappa smirked with a menacingly light expression in his voice. "Aww, they think their little toys are gonna stop us. They must be shaking in their boots by now!"
"Don't make any stupid mistakes, Nappa. Pick off the stragglers to the west." Vegeta ordered coldly. "Stay out of my way."
Nappa gulped as Vegeta gave his last order as an afterthought.
It really wasn't necessary, but it drove the point home. Vegeta was taking point on this mission. That was a rarity. Usually, it meant that either the planet in question was a high enough level to warrant it, or that Vegeta was in the mood to blow off some steam.
In this case, the highest power level on Nappa's scouter was 3,000, and there were only a few signals even near that level. Nappa could have wiped them all out by himself without breaking a sweat. Which meant Vegeta's reason for taking point this time was the latter.
Nappa locked eyes with Raditz and Soy, the last two Saiyans left on the elite team apart from himself and the prince.
Raditz nodded back at Nappa, grabbing Soy and moving to cover their rear, to protect their ships, and stay in the safest place, where Vegeta was unlikely to shoot an errant ki blast at.
Soy simply… didn't resist being dragged to safety. He had short, spiky black hair and more scars than any of the others put together. One of his eyes was completely gone, the socket covered by a long-healed scar, and he wasn't wearing a scouter at all due to the fact that the display would obscure the vision of his remaining eye and critically wound his already depleted combat potential.
Vegeta started his rampage.
This was a civilization marked as 'high-class' under the ranking system that the Frieza Force utilized. The power levels of the military here didn't dip below 100, and they used a combination of rather impressive technology and their own raw, physical power to fight.
The entire military was gathered before the Saiyan team. Several million in number, ranging from those in tanks or on battleships in the water surrounding the landmass, to those in planes and walking along the ground, firing wildly at him.
None of it mattered to Vegeta.
He tuned his scouter into his own power level, to watch the number. 16,531.
Gathering his energy, he carpet-bombed one of the larger regiments. 16,554.
"DIE!" With a roar, Vegeta blasted his way through another group of soldiers, eager to feel the sweet rush of his fists tearing through flesh, forcing the weak, disgusting alien bodies to explode like balloons with every vastly overpowered strike.
His eyes weren't seeing the aliens in front of him, though. They tracked the numbers on the scouter unblinkingly. 16,622.
Not enough. Useless. Barely on par with Cui.
"GO TO HELL!" A massive ki blast exploded out of his hands, hitting a military cruiser head-on. The explosion was spectacular. 16,643. The remaining cruisers fired missiles at Vegeta's position from the water. Vegeta punched the air. A shockwave rippled out from his fist. The missiles erupted in the sky, too far from the ground to affect the alien soldiers on the ground.
No… The Saiyans were the aliens. These ugly bastards were the natives.
It didn't matter.
Despite the fact that he'd blown the missiles up midair in order to protect as many of the natives as he could, planes and other aircraft began falling from the sky en masse. Most of the seafaring vessels met with an unfortunate end too, due to the chain reaction. The battlefield became a hellscape of exploding vehicles filled to the brim with weaponry.
One of the plane pilots was smart. Even as he fell out of the sky, he directed his plane to land directly on Vegeta.
Vegeta looked up with disdain, locking eyes with the pilot as the plane screamed toward him with the force of a meteor. Unstoppable, unavoidable.
Vegeta's hair rippled in the breeze as he walked out of the smoke and twisted metal. The edge of his clothes hadn't even been singed.
His eyes were still stuck on the readout, unblinking. 16,749. It taunted him.
It pissed him off.
He grabbed the neck of the nearest native. It struggled in his grip, then pulled the trigger on the plasma-powered gun in its hands. "Have fun in hell… you bastard…" The native whispered as the gun repeatedly shot into Vegeta's side.
"You'll have to go first." The alien's face distorted with the light of Vegeta's ki for a moment before his body exploded in a large blast that cratered a portion of the opposing army, nearly hitting Nappa.
Vegeta didn't care about that. He instead reached down and picked up the gun that the native had dropped, the only remnant of the native that'd been bold enough to stand up to him.
He checked the gun's power cell. Similar to Frieza Force tech. Partially full.
Seeing Vegeta holding one of their own guns so casually had a strange effect on the native army. Collectively, they took a half-step back on impulse.
Vegeta shot a measured bit of ki into the plasma battery, shattering the inner shell. Then, he casually tossed it at the native horde in front of him.
A blast from one of the guns continuously firing at him got lucky and hit the power cell right before it hit the front lines.
Several rows of natives were still vaporized, the heated plasma creating a crater of glass.
16,882.
He slammed into the disorganized enemy lines with the ferocity of a demon. Natives, vehicles, weapons, at one point he razed a massive rock from existence, it didn't matter to him. They all felt his wrath equally.
The numbers ticked up with every bit of carnage. 16,894. 16,906. 16,937.
Vegeta let out a roar of pure rage. "SCREWWWW YOUUUU!" Shockwaves of ki erupted from his body in a physical, visible way, blowing everything around him to dust.
The old, generic-class scouter on Vegeta's face, that could only count to 20,000, beeped once. 17,000.
The number hung there for a moment. Then, another beep. 16,999. 16,998.
"DAMMMMIITTTT!!!!!" His hands found themselves at his side before his conscious mind even realized what was going on with any sort of accuracy.
Nearby, Nappa's eyes widened in shock as he registered himself… directly in the way.
The large Saiyan was moving before the words even left Vegeta's lips. "GAAAALLLIICCCCCKKKKKK!!!! GUUUN!" Vegeta's scouter beeped, hitting its limit as the gathered power exploded out of him, carving through most of the rest of the native army like a hot knife through butter.
Luckily, Vegeta was only at his limit for a moment. Rather than truly processing the full content of the energy he emitted, it bugged out for a second after hitting its limit.
Vegeta watched the numbers drop, quicker than the eye could follow. 20,000. 19,000. 18,000. 17,500. 17,000. And it kept dropping. 16,900. 16,800. 16,700. 16,600. 16,500.
Beep. 16,464. "Dammit." He muttered to himself, locking eyes with
Nappa, who'd barely managed to dodge the edge of the energy wave.
Turning his back, Vegeta waved at Nappa. The meaning was clear. 'I'm done. Mop up.'
As he floated over to the ships, his scouter beeped with a message.
"Soy. When Nappa is finished, tell him that we're not bothering with the rest of the mop-up. Frieza sent a recall order for us."
Soy nodded, as Vegeta clicked the button, opening the door to his ship and climbing inside.