Two hours.
Two hours of absolute, merciless focus.
Vegeta stood alone at the heart of a shattered island, every breath a controlled explosion, every heartbeat a war drum.
Three million.
Maybe three and a half.
It still wasn't enough.
He closed his eyes.
Drew every last drop of the ocean inside him toward the black hole at the base of his spine.
Last time it had swallowed him whole.
This time he was the flood.
No resistance at the gate. He had already torn that down.
Only the void remained: deeper, hungrier, a starving singularity that drank galaxies.
Ten times faster. Twenty.
His ki roared down the channel like a supernova turned inside out.
White-purple fire became pure white.
The island beneath him cracked in half.
Oceans retreated from the pressure alone.
Lightning clawed from a suddenly blackened sky, drawn to him like iron to a magnet.
Vegeta's lips peeled back in a feral snarl.
"FILL!!"
Veins like molten steel bulged across his arms, his neck, his face.
The void shuddered.
For one impossible second it fought back, trying to swallow him again.
Then something gave.
A single golden spark ignited at the very center of the abyss.
Vegeta felt it: the tipping point.
He screamed.
Not rage. Not pain.
Victory.
"NOW!!"
The spark detonated.
Power reversed direction, no longer pouring in; it exploded outward in a column of pure, molten gold that punched straight through the planet's atmosphere.
The white-purple aura shattered like glass.
Golden fire took its place, roaring a hundred meters into the sky.
Stone turned to plasma.
The sea boiled.
Lightning froze mid-flash, too slow to keep up.
Vegeta's hair ignited, black fusing into brilliant gold that whipped upward in defiance of gravity.
Eyebrows vanished into the same blazing color.
His eyes snapped open: twin emeralds burning with divine fury.
The scream that tore from his throat was no longer human.
"KRRRAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"
The transformation locked.
Super Saiyan.
Every cell sang.
Every atom howled.
The void was gone.
In its place sat a sun.
Vegeta hovered in the heart of the golden inferno, fists clenched so tight the air around them ignited.
He looked at his hands; gold light dancing across armored fingers.
Then he looked at the sky.
And laughed.
A short, sharp, utterly triumphant sound that carried across half the planet.
Frieza felt it in his bones, two thousand kilometers away, and for the first time in his life knew real fear.
Krillin dropped to his knees in the cave, whispering one word over and over.
"No… no, no, no…"
Gohan's eyes filled with tears he couldn't explain.
And on the Grand Elder's spire, the ancient Namekian smiled, weak but radiant.
The legend had awakened.
The tyrant's days were numbered.
Vegeta flexed once.
The golden aura flared brighter, carving his silhouette into the storm like a god descending to war.
"Frieza…"
His voice was calm.
Quiet.
Inevitable.
"I'm coming for you."