The Lookout, Room of Spirit and Time.
Gohan had been inside for roughly ten months now. The first three he spent adapting to the chamber's brutal conditions and pushing Super Saiyan to the Full-Power state.
Night in the chamber. A razor wind howled past, and spears of ice rose from the ground like teeth.
Gohan stood at center, eyes half-closed, fists clenched, ki gathering fast.
"Yaaaaaah!"
His shout chased the silence away. Power surged out of that slight frame
First came the golden blaze of Super Saiyan: a x50 boost, battle power leaping to 750 million.
Then he steadied, condensed, and slid into Full-Power Super Saiyan: a calm x80 amplification 1.2 billion.
After the fight with Cooler, his base power had jumped a full five million. Added to what he already had, his base now sat at 15 million.
It startled him at first. But when he thought it through, it made sense. Once you break into Super Saiyan, that old bottleneck shatters and base climbs fast especially when your tail is intact and your body is in peak condition.
(Consider the original timeline: even without a tail, Gohan spent over a year in here, mastered Full-Power, then hit Super Saiyan 2 in the Cell Games. By that yardstick, this isn't outrageous. It's… normal.)
In the Full-Power state, his aura was steady, the ki draw low none of the wild churn of a fresh transformation.
Next
"Super Saiyan Two break for me! Haaaaaah!"
Power hammered the chamber. The air shook; icicles shattered in a halo of shards.
Gohan's hair spiked higher, a single lock falling over his brow. The smooth golden aura roughened into jetting streams, and blue lightning licked around him.
His amplification snapped to x100.
Battle power: 1.5 billion.
And that was only SSJ2's initial gain. He knew that once he refined it to Full-Power, the multiplier would hit a fearsome x150.
"It really did come as naturally as water finding its course. Not a hint of a wall. Looks like fury isn't the only path to a breakthrough." He studied his own hands in awe.
This hadn't been the grim trial he'd pictured. Once he'd perfected Full-Power SSJ, he was already brushing the membrane of Two. After months of stockpiling energy, he simply poured everything into that thin film and it tore like paper.
He let the light fall, returned to base, and began again. He wanted to know why it had been so easy.
SSJ. Full-Power. SSJ2 ignite.
As he crossed the threshold, he poured all his attention inward.
There he felt it: at the instant of breakthrough, his tail fed a peculiar, steady current into him. A catalyst. It didn't supply the power so much as trigger the change, urging his existing ki to undergo a qualitative shift and smash the barrier clean through.
"So that's it. The tail again."
Holding SSJ2, he sat cross-legged and calmed his breath. The jetting streams of gold thinned, smoothed; only the occasional blue spark danced and vanished.
Roughly two months left on the clock. Even if he couldn't reach Full-Power SSJ2 in that time, he would make the form obedient a transformation to slip into like a second skin.
He sealed his aura, stood, and returned to basics footwork, strikes, breath. Then, growing used to SSJ2's heft, he began inventing new techniques. Like Goku, he fired ki blasts at himself to harden his body against its own output.
He'd asked Korin for a generous sack of Senzu Beans before coming. Enough to carry him through.
On a tech-heavy world that did brisk trade with off-worlders
"Hey, did you hear? Frieza got wrecked by a Saiyan left half dead! And his big brother? Cooler's dead, killed by a Saiyan!" A dog-snouted alien leaned across the cheap canteen table, voice low.
The place was a pit stop fuel for ships and bellies at sensible prices. Drifters came and went.
"Come on. Cooler? In the South Area his name's as scary as Frieza's. How could some Saiyan kill him? Rumor says Cooler's stronger than Frieza," his companion scoffed.
"It's true. My third uncle's cousin-in-law's second uncle's kid brother works at King Cold's HQ. News is all over the legion."
Crack.
At the next table, a man with hair like living flame crushed a cup in his hand, face turning to iron.
Vegeta.
Since leaving Earth he hadn't returned to Frieza's forces. He'd roamed instead, tempering himself on savage worlds, learning to control his power.
He'd clawed his way up to 500,000 and by his reckoning, Frieza's combat power sat around 530,000 (in that first form).
His plan had been simple: refuel, return, challenge Frieza.
Lucky he hadn't tried. At that level, he wouldn't last a heartbeat against the real monster.
"Kakarot… Son Gohan!"
Vegeta ground the names out between his teeth half fury, half a thrill he refused to admit, with a bitter vein of shame. He believed he could take Frieza. He did not believe he could take Gohan. That image Gohan blazing as a Super Saiyan was carved into him.
Pride snapped taut.
He left the canteen, boarded his ship, and punched a course for King Cold's coordinates.
He would kill Frieza himself and reclaim the pride of the Saiyan Prince.
He had no idea Frieza's body had been stolen by Ginyu… and was even now thrashing through special training.
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