Ch. 129: Survive, Vegeta! The Prince's Valiant Struggle!

"Come on, Vegeta. Just a little more, I'm sure the villagers will be able to help you!" Nappa muttered as he blasted through the turbulent Namekian atmosphere. Despite Nappa's words of concern, it likely would've helped the prince a lot more if the bigger man hadn't been carrying him over his shoulder like a sack of flour. Unfortunately for Vegeta, he was too unconscious and dying to complain about it.

Finally, the Namekian village, or at least what was left of it, finally came into view. 

Almost certainly due to the aftereffects of the battle against Frieza, the village was overrun with water, which was draining through a huge crack in the earth that ran through half of the village before disappearing in the direction of the fields. The villagers had mostly managed to evacuate to a nearby bluff, but the village elder was still in the main part of the village, as well as Rise and a few of the warriors that Nappa recognized from his time tending the fields. It was obvious that they were still trying to evacuate all of the extremely old or young Namekians.

"Elder! I need your help! Vegeta-"

"He's been badly wounded, I see. Nappa, I apologize, but I can't do anything for him here. Whatever battle's going on right now is affecting the planet. I'm sorry, but my hands are full. Take him to the hilltop. There's a boy there with healing powers. He should be able to help your friend." the village elder instructed Nappa quickly. "Rise, you get Jin!"

"Right!"

Following the elder's instructions, Nappa didn't have much of a choice. He flew over to the hill where the evacuees were situated and shouted for a healer. It wasn't long before a young Namekian ran forward to help Nappa.

"I'm Cargo. Set him down here." The child instructed Nappa quickly, not asking questions.

As for why Cargo was at the village in the first place, Bulma's cottage had begun violently shaking with Frieza's very first power-up. Fearing the worst, Bulma had immediately begun doing... nothing but complain, so Cargo had forced her to come with him to the village that he knew from Gohan was likely still standing due to Nappa's efforts. For Vegeta, that had been a stroke of luck, because Cargo and Dende both shared the same otherworldly healing powers. 

"-Where am I!? Frieza!?" Having been healed, Vegeta immediately sat up with a force that almost blew Cargo away just from the wind pressure. Looking around, he'd already realized where he was before Nappa'd said a thing. "Child, how did you do that?!" He asked, grabbing Cargo by the collar.

"I-I have the power to heal! It's a rare ability found among Namekians!" Cargo answered in a fluster.

"You could always say thank you for the healing before you grab someone and make demands like that!" Bulma shouted at Vegeta, causing him to grit his teeth and let go of Cargo in a fluster of information-overload. He could tell that he'd been unconscious long enough for the fight against Frieza to go into a different phase, and Frieza's energy was more titanic than ever, only barely being matched by Raditz's already fading energy. 

With a single glance, Vegeta could instantly tell that his energy, though far stronger than what it'd been when he'd gotten injured originally, was absolutely nothing compared to that of Raditz and Frieza, but with Cargo's healing powers, he could finally see a way out of this nightmare. 

Theoretically.

"S-sir, do you need healing, too?" Cargo asked Nappa as Vegeta's attention became drawn to the fight happening across the planet.

"Nappa. I don't care what you do, but KEEP THIS BOY SAFE!" Vegeta barked at Nappa as he got ready to take off.

"Hey! You don't get to ignore everybody around you and just bark orders like that!? ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?! Apologize to and thank Cargo this instant!" Bulma started yelling at Vegeta, but he didn't have time for Bulma at the moment. Barely sparing her a glance, Vegeta blasted off of the hilltop, leaving Nappa behind as Cargo healed the burly man of all of the cuts and bruises that were covering his body. After all, though he hadn't been nearly as bad off as Vegeta had been, Nappa had been in pretty bad shape after Frieza'd hit him, too.

...

"GALICK GUN HAAA!!!!!" For likely the first time in his life, Vegeta didn't have any concrete plans when he threw himself into danger, shooting Frieza in the back with a Galick Gun while he'd been charging up energy for the final blow against Raditz. He believed that he could probably win if he managed to survive and crawl back from the brink of death via Cargo's healing a few times, but that wasn't something that he was about to count on. 

"What the hell are you imbeciles doing!?" He shouted towards Krillin, Piccolo, Gohan, and Hanna, who had just been watching Frieza the entire time he'd been beating the tar out of Raditz. "Don't just stand there!"

"Vegeta." Even though he'd hit him from behind, totally out of the blue, Vegeta's Galick Gun hadn't even managed to scorch Frieza's skin. Instead, he simply dropped Raditz and turned toward the Saiyan Prince with annoyance in his eyes. "Little bugs, crawling out of every damn orifice!" He shouted, "I THOUGHT YOU WERE DYING!? WHY DON'T ANY OF YOU MONKEYS JUST STAY DEAD!?"

Throwing a tantrum, Frieza began screaming at the Saiyan, who, though having been somehow magically healed, had clearly been on the verge of death just a few minutes ago, and had huge tears all over his clothes to prove it. It seemed that every time the emperor turned around, a Saiyan somehow managed to dip into some sort of energy reserve that they'd never had before, and it was seriously getting on Frieza's nerves. "But I suppose it doesn't matter. All inevitably fall before absolute power." He told Vegeta as he ended his tantrum, mostly to convince himself.

"I suppose you're right. Now, let's see which of us truly holds absolute power... the future Super Saiyan, or the obsolete emperor!" Vegeta called out in response.