Ch. 87: Namek Has a Moon!?

"Did I overdo it?" I wondered, looking at the crater where Guldo had been just a moment ago. I'd expected his eleven thousand power level to hold up better against mine, but he really had turned out to be absolute trash without his little tricks. There wasn't even a molecule of Guldo fragment left after the blast. It left a bittersweet taste in my mouth, but keeping him alive and tossing him into the care of my girls would have been cruel and unusual punishment for any single member of the Ginyu Force, since he'd probably insult me during his struggles. 

Imagining their reaction to such made me unconsciously shudder a little bit.

But defeating Guldo wasn't the end of this fight. Rather, it was more of a prerequisite for survival. Getting my mind back on track, I used my senses to scan the other battlefields.

"I know you were annoyed at the guy for dirtying your hair, Jeice, but are you sure that you don't want me stepping in?" Burter was asking, watching Jeice chase after Krillin and Gohan. 

Jeice had an incredible advantage in speed, but Krillin and Gohan were two people, and were keeping their distances from each other. By the time Jeice almost caught up with one, the other would have hit him with a full-powered (too weak to do anything more than annoy) blast. If Jeice wasn't so stupid, he'd have kept his focus on the one that he was closest to, but he was too arrogant to do that, so instead, he kind of just flew in loops between the two. That wasn't going to last for long, but they weren't in the same immediate danger that Vegeta was in.

"Recooome... SMASH!!!" Aand... Vegeta was smashed into the ground, head-first.

"What are you doing, Piccolo?" I mutter under my breath. He'd gathered enough energy in his Special Beam Cannon to annihilate like... four or five Recoomes just as absolutely as I'd annihilated Guldo, but he was still just waiting. Was Recoome really freaking him out that badly? 

"I've just gotta trust Piccolo. He'll come through. In the meantime, I need to... help... SERIOUSLY!!??" Then, everything started to fall apart.

"SPECIAL BEAM CANNON!" When Recoome bent down to pick Vegeta up, Piccolo fired his cannon. 

"Duh-ohhhh..." Recoome fell onto Vegeta, his back blackened by the severity of Piccolo's attack. His energy faded quickly, but I wasn't focused on him anymore.

"That's... a moon... I forgot about Nappa!!!!" I realized. 

"GGGRRROOARRR!!!!" As I made the realization, an ape's cry shook the entire planet. Nappa had used the 'false moon' technique to turn himself into a great ape. Multiplying his power level by ten. 300,000. The Ginyu Force wouldn't stand a chance against that kind of power.

"Jeeicee... what's the scouter say about its power level?" Burter asked his companion cautiously, relying on the one scouter that was still working. Realizing the threat of a great ape of that magnitude, Jeice stopped chasing Krillin and focused his scouter on Nappa's power level. It immediately exploded on his face.

"Burter, mate, I don't think this is something that we can handle. Go get the captain, now!" Jeice immediately realized the extent of the Saiyan transformations. They'd fought Saiyans before, back before Frieza had destroyed Planet Vegeta, but the strongest Saiyan back then had been King Vegeta, with a power level of 10,000. In other words, they'd never fought a Great Ape with a power level touching on 100,000 before. On top of that, the 'false moon' technique was rare in and of itself, so they'd only fought a few great apes, but each one that they'd fought in the past had been roughly as strong, if not a little stronger than them individually. They knew a few tricks to take out apes that were roughly as powerful as they were, but Nappa's power had broken Jeice's new scouter. In other words, Nappa's risen power level had broken 200,000. 

Realizing that in horror, Jeice had immediately called out to his partner, telling him to go get Captain Ginyu. But Burter had other plans.

"No way! The Ginyu Force doesn't run! All we have to do is destroy that big ball in the sky, and he'll go back to being a normal, useless Saiyan! I'll do it myself. Nothing and nobody can stop the fastest warrior in the galaxy!" Burter shouted confidently, blasting into the sky.

"No, mate!" Jeice shouted out a warning, but it was too late.

"Do you think I'll let you!?" Nappa shouted, swatting Burter down like a fly. 

"Burter!" Jeice screamed, watching his partner get taken down with ease. 

"And you're next!" Nappa shouted, trying to grab Jeice out of the sky, but Jeice saw it coming and barely managed to dodge.

"The cap'n'll deal with you! I swear it!" Jeice shouted, flying off before Ape Nappa could stop him. 

"Not quite!" Nappa fired a huge blast of energy from his mouth at the fleeing Jeice, but he missed by a pretty good margin, and Jeice disappeared over the horizon.

"It's okay, Nappa. You tried your best, and you'll smash him when he comes back." Krillin reassured the giant Saiyan.

"I hope it'll be that simple..." Nappa muttered.

"Something tells me that it won't." I said, flying up to them.

"You beat the time-stopping guy?" Gohan asked me.

"He was too straightforward... and weak." I answered cryptically, "I think Piccolo and Vegeta beat that red-haired guy, too. Vegeta's energy's pretty weak, but I haven't sensed the other guy's energy since Piccolo used his Special Beam Cannon. 

"We should go check." Krillin said.

"We should go check that first." I pointed up. Something was wrong with Nappa's fake moon. Unbeknownst to everyone else here, I had told Shay to break it slowly almost the moment I saw it in the sky. Fighting Jeice, Burter, and Recoome hadn't even been a warm-up for Goku in the anime, so, while it wasn't great for my mental health, having Nappa drive them off wasn't a huge deal as long as Vegeta ended up getting injured enough that I could unleash a bit of his potential and drive his power level up to 200,000 like in the canon, but I couldn't let Nappa deal with Captain Ginyu himself, or I'd have to unleash Goku's potential myself, possibly stalling his future progress. As we watched, the moon wobbled, then popped out of existence.