Two more months passed.
In sweat, roars, and the grinding hum of gravity fields, time slid by.
To Vitli, training wasn't suffering—it was a pure measure of growth.
That crude gravity room's wild pressure swings were his best whetstone.
Each near-limit breakthrough brutally woke another sliver of sleeping Saiyan potential.
Boring? Not even a little.
Feeling his muscle fibers tear and regrow tougher. Feeling his ki grow more condensed, more surging.
That visible, tangible strengthening filled him with a kind of obsessive satisfaction.
"Haah—!"
Under three times Planet Vegeta gravity, Vitli moved so fast he left afterimages, pounding a custom alloy target with heavy, thunder-like impacts.
The target was spider-webbed with cracks and deep fist marks. Sweat poured like streams, pooling at his feet before flashing into fog from the heat.
The gravity room let out a dying whine and shut down. Smoke curled from the console.
"Tch. Broke again…"
Vitli panted, looking at the scouter's final stable number—13,000—and sighed.
This junk device couldn't keep up with his current intensity.
He'd already demanded that the low-ranked logistical and research aliens on the planet build him a proper, stable, higher-output gravity room—adjustable gravity, as high as possible.
A week ago they replied:
They could do it, but Planet Vegeta's gravity tech was behind. The maximum was only ten times the planet's normal pull.
Vitli had frowned. Way lower than he wanted.
Bulma's family could build five hundred times in the original story.
Then he shrugged. Whatever. This place was just a stopover anyway.
"Fine. Ten times is still better than nothing. As long as I get it in a week."
As he planned how to use the new room to push higher, someone knocked on his door in the palace's unmistakably commanding rhythm.
He opened it to find a Saiyan soldier in uniform, expressionless.
"Upper-class warrior Vitli. By order of King Vegeta, report immediately to the front square of the royal palace to await Lord Cold's arrival."
Vitli's heart jolted.
Cold. Frieza's father.
Why now?
"Late Age 731… Frieza's first official visit to Planet Vegeta?"
He searched the vague timeline in his head.
Right—this was when Frieza first toured his forces as heir and brought new scouters to the Saiyans.
"Damn it. The scouters."
Alarm bells blared in his skull. Frieza's scouters weren't old Saiyan antiques.
Higher precision—maybe even extra surveillance functions.
He glanced at the old scouter on his ear, and at the ki he was deliberately suppressing to around three thousand.
"From now on, I've got to be careful with these things. Under Frieza's eyes, I can't leak any abnormality."
"Yes. I'll leave at once."
He followed the messenger out, floating toward the palace at a controlled speed—neither too fast nor too slow, ki steady at the "normal" level for a newly awakened upper-class prodigy.
Low-key. Like water sinking into the sea—no presence at all.
When he landed on the vast palace square, it was already packed.
Nearly all mid- and high-level Saiyan warriors on the planet were gathered. The air was heavy with a tense solemnity and a faint undercurrent of dread.
At the front, King Vegeta stood stiffly, face stern, eyes hiding a flicker of pressure.
Vitli's arrival caught the king's attention.
That severe gaze swept over him, lingering in appraisal.
Vitli stepped forward and dropped to one knee.
"Vitli pays respects to Your Majesty!"
King Vegeta narrowed his eyes. The scouter beeped, reading Vitli's "steady" ki at around nineteen hundred. The king's mouth tugged into a faint, not-quite-smile.
"Mm. Rise, Vitli. Mett's child indeed. Only months awake and already nearing two thousand. You haven't disgraced your father's name. Good. Continue training. In the future, assist Prince Vegeta well."
"Thank you for Your Majesty's praise! I will devote myself entirely!"
Vitli answered with "feeling," while inside he felt nothing at all.
Assist Vegeta? Over his dead body.
"Stand toward the rear," the king ordered coolly. "Lord Cold is about to arrive. Don't offend our guests."
Vitli was secretly thrilled. Exactly where he wanted to be.
He rose, bowed his head, and melted into the back row like a prop.
Waiting dragged on in suffocating silence.
Then a low murmur rippled through the crowd:
"They're here!"
Far above, a dense swarm of round spacecraft roared in like locusts, carrying a sense of sheer destruction.
They ignored Planet Vegeta's architecture completely, their massive hulls smashing through tall buildings on the way in. Explosions and collapsing structures echoed out, paired with the distant screams of civilians below.
Every Saiyan in the square—King Vegeta included—dropped to one knee.
Uniform. Perfect. And humiliating.
Vitli followed suit instantly, bowing even lower, locking his ki at two thousand so tightly he might as well have been a stone.
"Welcome Lord Cold—!" The shout erupted like a tidal wave, full of reverence and fear.
A towering, hulking Lord Cold descended from the largest ship, purple-skinned with twin horns.
At his side floated a tiny white figure unmistakable in contrast—Frieza.
"Ha ha ha! King Vegeta, it's been a long time!"
Cold's laugh rolled like thunder.
"Welcome, Lord Cold! Welcome, Prince Frieza!" King Vegeta rose first, posture extremely low, voice bordering on flattery.
Cold and Frieza drifted down.
Just before they touched the ground, Vitli caught sight of a squad already waiting in front—posing in ridiculous, over-the-top stances.
The Ginyu Force.
"…"
Vitli's mouth twitched. He lowered his head fast before any expression betrayed him.
Those clowns never missed a chance to perform.
"Oh ho ho ho, King Vegeta, no need for such formalities."
Frieza's smooth, icy voice purred. His small body radiated a chill that seemed to drop the square's temperature.
"Yes, Prince Frieza."
King Vegeta bowed lower still.
Cold smiled as if watching a play.
"From today on, the Saiyans will be fully under my son Frieza's command. The Cold Force is officially renamed the Frieza Force."
His voice was absolute.
"Best keep your spirits up. Frieza is… even more cold-blooded than I am."
Before Cold finished, Frieza lifted a hand and politely cut him off.
He leaned forward slightly, red eyes sweeping the kneeling Saiyans. A smile bloomed on his face—pretty in a way that made skin crawl.
"Saiyans~"
His tone was bright, childish—yet saturated with soul-freezing menace.
"From today onward, I'm your new master. I'm very, very excited to see what you can do. Don't disappoint me, okay? Hee hee hee."
As he spoke, he casually picked up a redesigned, sleeker scouter from a nearby attendant and slipped it on.
His crimson eyes scanned the square through the lens.
Every Saiyan he looked at felt like prey under a viper's gaze. They bowed even lower, barely breathing.
Frieza suddenly made a light, curious sound, as if he'd noticed something amusing.
He pointed toward the top of a tall building behind the palace.
"Looks like there are some unfriendly little bugs."
Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!
Several tiny but razor-condensed red beams fired from his fingertip like scythes.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The fortress-grade alloy building was pierced and ripped apart like paper.
Fire erupted. Smoke boiled sky-high. A few silhouettes holding weapons—apparently trying to observe secretly—didn't even finish screaming before they vanished into dust.
The shockwave rolled to the square's edge, stirring muffled gasps and panic.
Vitli kept his head down, cursing inside.
That bastard came in and immediately made a show of force.
Up front, King Vegeta bowed so low his shoulders trembled.
Vitli could only sneer internally.
"So this is the Saiyan king. In front of real power, he's just a dog. Pathetic."
Frieza's smile faded to a bored calm.
He tossed the new scouter at King Vegeta's feet with a crisp clatter.
"Here, Saiyans—little gifts for you. Five hundred of the latest battle power scouters. They do a few complicated things. Figure it out yourselves."
He added lightly, "If you run out, just ask me, okay? Oh ho ho~"
Then he turned away and floated back to his ship.
Cold laughed and followed.
The fleet left the same way it came—blotting the sky like a doom cloud, smashing through the atmosphere, disappearing into the dim distance.
The meeting—brimming with pressure, slaughter, and humiliation—ended just like that.
The square fell dead silent.
After a long moment, King Vegeta rose, face iron-blue, fists clenched until his nails dug into his palms.
Officials crowded around him, whispering urgently.
Vitli felt no urge to stay.
He only wanted to go home and keep forging power.
In his mind, raging helplessly here or planning doomed countermeasures was pointless. Better to throw another ten thousand punches.
But as he turned, a palace official hurried over and stopped him.
Breathless, the man spoke fast:
"Vitli! Go back and prepare! Next month, Prince Vegeta will awaken from his tank. Your duties as his guard will take effect immediately. You must remain by his side at all times. No mistakes!"
"What?!"
Vitli's heart lurched. "I thought there were still six months?!"
The official glared impatiently.
"Prince Vegeta's awakening is not for you to question. This is King Vegeta's command. Prepare and await formal notice."
He stalked off into the palace crowd.
Vitli stood frozen, staring after him, then toward the oppressive palace silhouette. A cold chill crawled up his spine.
Vegeta awakening early… right after Frieza left?
No way that was a coincidence.
King Vegeta felt the threat. He needed his "hope" to grow faster to face Frieza's terror.
And Vitli the "guard" was being chained to that speeding war chariot.
"Trouble…"
Guarding Vegeta? That proud, cruel, life-as-dust prince?
His "hidden" two thousand was nothing in front of Vegeta's real strength.
One slip and he'd be discarded like trash.
Worse, staying close to Vegeta meant stepping into the Frieza Force's core spotlight.
Scouter use had to be even more cautious. Ki suppression had to become perfect.
He inhaled, forcing the chaos down.
Panic would solve nothing.
"Fine." His eyes sharpened.
"If he wakes early, he wakes early. That just means I can find my chance to vanish to Earth earlier too. Not necessarily bad."
As for royal orders? Please.
The only thing he could truly rely on was the strength in his fists.
"Thirteen thousand… still not enough. Not even close."
He turned away, gaze fixed on home.
The new gravity room would arrive in a week. Ten-times gravity was the new starting line.
"Back home. Three more sets of ten thousand push-ups."