"Big Bang Attack!"
Vegeta shot into the sky, right hand leveled at Gohan.
A brilliant orb streaked down in a blink.
"Ki Barrier!"
Gohan spread his limbs; power flashed across his body like a shield.
Boom!
The blast roared, bright as a second sun rising off the desert floor. Vegeta's Big Bang Attack was a savage thing fast, heavy, and touchy; anything it struck, whether flesh or another beam, it forced into a chain reaction that detonated on contact. Gohan didn't bother trading beams he braced, wrapped himself in energy, and let it blow.
When the glare faded, he was still there.
"Vegeta go all out. Show me how far you've really come."
"Heh. So you noticed." Vegeta's lip curled. "Fine. No more holding back."
He let Kaio-ken fade, dug in, and bit down.
"Yaaaaaah!"
Raw, feral power blasted out of him. His eyes flashed from black to white to green; his hair, a rising flame, flickered between black and gold.
"Aaaah!"
The pale blue aura around him snapped into a golden blaze. The pressure spiked several tiers at once. The desert world's magnetic field buckled; thunderheads rolled in over a land that hadn't seen a cloud in millennia. Lightning cracked.
Five million… fifty million… one hundred million… two hundred and fifty million !
Gold hair. Green eyes. A gaze gone cold and predatory.
"Gohan I am the Saiyan prince. An elite. The genius of our race!"
The old arrogance was back, sharp and familiar. Super Saiyan twisted your temper rage riding high until you mastered the form. Only at Full-Power Super Saiyan did that lake turn mirror-flat.
"Heh. That's the Vegeta I know. Earlier you were smothering yourself."
Gohan had expected this. If Vegeta had climbed this far and still couldn't break through, that would've been the disappointment.
"You're not transforming?" Vegeta frowned at Gohan's ready stance.
"If I do, the game's over." Gohan grinned. "How about… Kaio-ken x3."
Red lines crawled his aura; his power leapt past three hundred million and at x3 his body felt no strain at all.
"Freak." Vegeta felt the spike and couldn't help himself.
"Come on." Gohan crooked a finger.
"Bastard!"
Vegeta flashed in, right leg scything for Gohan's head.
Clang!
Gohan turned with it, both forearms up, steel-on-steel, the kick shoving him skidding back hundreds of meters, feet gouging twin furrows through the rock. His arms tingled.
"So Super Saiyan isn't just ki. Your body's a lot tougher too."
He'd never met a Super Saiyan head-on in base before out of respect for his dad, he always transformed when Goku did so the difference hit him clean now.
"What's wrong, Gohan? Running out of gas?" Vegeta smirked. "Kaio-ken eats stamina. Transform already."
"I could go like this all day."
Gohan blurred forward.
Fists and knees hammered. With a fifty-million edge even without transforming, Gohan pressed him. Vegeta's body was harder but he was still being driven back.
"Damn it Gohan! Try this!'"
Vegeta slid away and bellowed, muscles surging until he looked like a carved juggernaut.
"Oh? Already there? As expected of a Saiyan prodigy."
He'd stepped into Super Saiyan, Grade 2 the muscle-packed ascended stage. Power climbed to roughly 350 million.
"This is everything. If you can still take it I yield! Haaa !"
Vegeta spread his arms; energy pooled so violently his forearms trembled, skin straining against it.
"Final… Flash!"
Lightning crawled across the twin suns in his palms. He drew them together at his chest and hurled a colossal beam.
"Ka… me… ha… me… ha!"
Gohan sank at the hips, cupped his hands at his waist, and fired. Pure, clean blue slammed into gold midair.
The beams locked. Neither ceded an inch.
"He stopped it ! It's on par with my Final Flash!" Vegeta's eyes went wide. Gohan had thrown his Kamehameha out almost instantly, and yet it matched the charge-up monster he'd just released. Worse, Vegeta was already flagging; Gohan looked like he was out for a jog.
"Move!" Vegeta snarled through his teeth, ripping at his limits, pouring everything he had into the beam.
Final Flash bulged, shouldering the Kamehameha backward.
"Vegeta, that's enough! Your body won't take it!"
"Don't you dare hold back!"
"Stubborn prince… x4!"
Gohan kicked Kaio-ken up a notch and fed the wave. His Kamehameha swelled and, in an instant, steam-rolled Final Flash back the other way.
"Not good !"
Vegeta was spent. He couldn't dodge. The light swallowed him
and didn't.
Boom.
A canyon the size of a continent split the desert world. High above the blast line, Gohan hung in the air, fist locked around Vegeta's wrist.
"You really are addicted to pushing past your limits."
"Heh. Couldn't get out of the way." Vegeta gave a crooked smile, hair and aura falling back to black and calm.
They'd been ground-to-ground in the beam struggle; if Gohan had been firing down from on high, that planet would be dust.
"Here. Senzu. It'll bring you back."
Vegeta swallowed it whole. Color returned in a breath.
"I lost." The prince said it flatly, a shadow passing over his face.
"Don't sulk. Hitting Grade 2 this soon is impressive."
"'Grade 2'?" He blinked. "What do you mean?"
(Author's note: "Longing without getting.")
"Watch."
Gohan touched down and flared gold Super Saiyan.
"This is baseline. Next what you just used: Grade 2."
His frame swelled; muscle knotted under his skin.
"So you can do it too… I thought maybe I was charting my own path." Vegeta's mouth tightened. All that work only to see Gohan step into it like a warm-up.
"And then "
"There's more?" Vegeta's eyes fixed on him.
"Full-Power Super Saiyan. Haa!"
He crossed his arms; a tidal pressure rolled off him. The golden aura didn't just burn, it flowed, smooth and dense.
"At Full Power, the multiplier climbs to about eighty-fold. To reach it, you live in Super Saiyan eat in it, sleep in it until it's as natural and calm as base. Your control has to be absolute. That part shouldn't be hard for you."
"I get it. Make the form your new 'normal,' then, on top of that calm, you can spike higher without breaking the body."
"Exactly. And after that "
Gohan's shout tore the air. His hair stood higher; a single bang fell across his brow. Lightning crackled in the aura.
"Super Saiyan Two. Base to x100. Twice the first stage."
Vegeta could only stare. "How many forms do Saiyans have?"
"No idea." Gohan laughed. "Paths diverge. Some go I, II, III; some touch godly power Red, then Blue, even a deeper Blue. There's Ultra Instinct… Ultra Ego… my own 'Ultimate' even a wild 'Beast' down the line. In other branches there's Four. Fan legends talk Five and beyond. Too many to count."
He let the lightning gutter out, gold falling back to black, and the desert wind finally punched through the silence between them.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Your support keeps this story going leave a 5★ review, add it to your library, and feed it some Power Stones!
"Want to stay ahead of the game?Advanced chapters are up on my Patron. If you're enjoying the ride, swing by and check them out."
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"