"Lord Frieza! The target's instantaneous power output—it spiked to over twenty million!!"
The technician's voice, shrill with utter terror, was the last thing Frieza heard before his personal communicator and the entire section of his ship's comms system were obliterated by the raw energy washing over them.
In space, the brilliant blue-white column of the Kamehameha had faded, leaving an afterimage burned into the void. Where Frieza's hover pod had been, there was now a churning, volatile sphere of violently compressed ki, crackling with suppressed rage.
Whoosh.
Rhode had already Instant Transmitted away, putting a safe kilometer between himself and the epicenter. He felt it clearly through the ether—Frieza was not only alive, but the energy signature emanating from that sphere had skyrocketed into a realm of pure, terrifying magnitude.
The ki sphere dissipated like mist, revealing the figure within.
Frieza stood, arms crossed defensively over his chest. But he was utterly transformed. Gone was the compact, white-armored form. In its place was a sleek, lavender-and-white being of elegant, deadly lines—his Final Form. Raw, unadulterated power radiated from him in palpable waves, distorting the light around him. Even at this distance, Rhode could feel the crushing weight of it.
As expected. Not that easy.
A flicker of regret, then cold analysis. Frieza's base 530,000 was a self-imposed limit, a cage for convenience. His true power—a staggering 120 million—was always there, sleeping. In moments of genuine threat, that power could surge forth instinctively, even if imperfectly controlled. Rhode's attack, pushing into the tens of millions, had been enough to trigger that failsafe.
His own power, even with his refined Oozaru multiplier pushing him to ten million, and the Kamehameha's amplification, had likely peaked around twenty or thirty million. Against a being whose true scale was over a hundred million… it was a needle against a mountain. A very sharp, surprising needle, but a needle nonetheless.
Bang!
The explosive wave of ki from Frieza's transformation lashed out, vaporizing the few stunned soldiers who hadn't been caught in the initial Kamehameha blast.
Frieza's expression was a mask of cold, murderous fury. He had never been forced into such a state, never been made to feel… pressured. "How audacious," his voice was a low, venomous hiss that carried through the vacuum.
"Lord Frieza is truly impressive, as expected," Rhode replied, his tone light, almost teasing, belying the razor's edge he now walked.
"Hmph! A paltry ten million power level, and you thought you could kill me?" Frieza sneered, though a fraction of his anger was soothed by the acknowledgment of his superiority. "Let's see how far your little tricks can take you."
Swish!
He didn't finish the sentence. One moment he was there, the next he wasn't. Space itself seemed to flinch as he reappeared directly behind Rhode, his arm already a blur as he drove an elbow aimed to shatter Rhode's spine.
Bang!
But Rhode had never dropped his guard. The moment Frieza vanished from his sight, his body reacted on pure instinct honed in a year of relentless Time Chamber sparring against Aira's fiercest onslaughts. He twisted, not to dodge fully, but to angle his body, taking the blow on his crossed arms instead of his back.
The impact was like a small moon crashing into him. It hurled him backward through space, his arms screaming in protest, but he was intact. He skidded to a controlled stop, his arms throbbing but unbroken, his eyes locked on the now-even-more-surprised tyrant. The real fight had just begun, and the gap in their power was a yawning abyss. But Rhode had one advantage Frieza had never needed to develop: the skill to fight from the very brink of annihilation.
Rhode twisted his torso, his own fist lashing out to intercept Frieza's elbow, a desperate block that sent a shock of pain up his arm. He managed a counter-punch, but it thudded harmlessly against Frieza's forearm, unable to penetrate the monstrous defense.
"Oh?" A flicker of genuine surprise crossed Frieza's face, quickly replaced by a predator's delight. "A warrior of your caliber is a rarity in this universe! But," his voice dropped, "that was merely one-tenth of my power. Let's see you block this."
His knee drove upward, a piston of bone and malice aimed for Rhode's solar plexus. Even with his heightened senses screaming a warning, Rhode couldn't fully evade. The impact drove the air from his lungs in a pained gasp. He focused instantly, hardening his abdominal muscles with ki, turning a potentially crippling blow into a deep, bruising ache.
But Rhode wasn't one to endure a beating passively. As the force of the knee strike rocked him, his hands shot down, clamping onto Frieza's leg like vices. With a grunt of effort fueled by Oozaru-enhanced strength, he hurled the tyrant away.
Swish!
He was gone before Frieza finished tumbling, appearing in his flight path. A devastating kick connected, sending Frieza careening back the way he came.
Frieza merely flared his ki, halting his motion with contemptuous ease. In the next nanosecond, he was beside Rhode, a leg whipping towards his head like a lavender scythe.
Swish! Rhode vanished. He reappeared at Frieza's side, a fist aimed for the temple.
Bang! Frieza's hand was already there, catching it. His fingers began to curl, aiming to crush the captured fist. Rhode vanished again.
Bang! He materialized behind Frieza, a chop aimed for the neck. Frieza's other hand came up, blocking it without looking.
Swish! A disappearance. A reappearance below. Rhode's leg snapped up in a vicious kick aimed squarely between Frieza's legs.
Thud.
This time, Frieza didn't block. He didn't flinch. He simply… endured it. The strike landed with a solid impact, but Frieza's expression didn't change a micron. It was like kicking a mountain of neutronium.
Swish! Swish! Swish! Rhode became a phantom, a blur of teleporting strikes. He harried Frieza from every conceivable angle—above, below, behind, the sides. The air crackled with the sound of impacts, BANG! BANG! BANG!, as fist and foot met an immovable, lavender wall. The space around them was cleared, a vacuum of pure violence.
Finally, Rhode flashed to a stop a distance away. He was drenched in sweat, his chest heaving, steam rising from his skin in the cold vacuum. Yet, his eyes weren't filled with despair. They blazed with a fierce, exhilarating light. This. This was the pressure he sought. The anvil against which he could forge himself further.
Frieza hadn't even broken a sweat. He looked utterly composed, a slight, amused smile playing on his lips as he regarded the panting Saiyan.
"What's the matter?" Frieza taunted, his voice a silken purr. "Giving up already?"
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