THIRD PERSON POV

“Take the King to be healed,” Okara ordered a saiyan that she had brought with her.

“Understood!” The Saiyan warrior nodded, carrying his wounded King over his shoulders before taking off.

“You really think I will allow that pest to escape?” Frieza spat with disdain, aiming with one finger at Escarot.

Okara moved in response, not giving Frieza the courtesy of knowing she was coming. One second she was standing beside Nail, and the next she was in Frieza's face, fist cocked, driving a punch straight at his jaw.

Frieza's eyes widened in surprise for a split of a second, before he caught the attack with ease.

His hand closed around her fist and for a moment they were frozen — two fighters locked in a single point of contact, neither moving. Then Frieza smiled, and opened his mouth to say something, only for Okara to headbut him with all her might.

His head snapped back and she ripped her hand free delivering a knee to his damaged torso, right where Escarot’s attack had torn through him. The hit landed and Frieza gasped; a short, sharp sound of genuine pain that he clearly hadn't expected to make.

Okara had put everything into that kick, and it had delivered the result she had been expecting. That was at least, until his tail whipped around and caught her across the face as she smirked in celebration, sending her spinning through the air.

Down below, Nail was already moving.

He'd used the half-second Okara had bought him with her sudden attack to close the distance, and he came in low, driving a fist into Frieza's ribs from the left side. The emperor barely acknowledged the hit — it was like watching someone swat a fly — but it made him turn, and that was the point.

Okara reappeared above Frieza, teleporting directly over his head, and dropped with both fists clasped together like a hammer. The blow drove Frieza straight down into the ground, cratering the earth beneath him.

"Don't let up!" Nail shouted, already on the move.

“I already know that!” Okara shouted back.

Wasting no time, Nail began his attack firing multiple ki blasts in rapid succession, down into the crater where Frieza had disappeared. Each one detonated on impact, kicking up dirt and flame, turning the hole into a furnace.

Okara landed beside him and added her own fire to the barrage, her blasts mixed with Nail's, layering on top of each other, building into a sustained hellish rain that kept the crater under constant bombardment.

It lasted all of three seconds.

Before Frieza's aura exploded outward from the crater, a wave of purple energy that blew both of them back. Nail hit the ground rolling and came up in a guard. Okara teleported out of the blast radius and reappeared on Frieza's right side, already throwing another punch.

He caught her attack again.

"You are starting to become annoying," he said, and threw her into Nail.

They collided mid-air, tangled for a moment, and separated. Nail hit the ground and skidded. Okara flipped and landed on her feet.

Frieza floated out of the crater. It was clear to any spectator that Escarot had done some real work on his body, but he was far from over. If there was one thing the Frost Demons were known for, was for how resilient they were. "So," he said, looking between them. "A Namekian and a Saiyan child. This is what comes to save the mighty king of monkeys? Ohohohohoh~"

Nail didn't respond with words. He responded with a mouth blast — a concentrated beam of energy fired directly at Frieza's face. The emperor tilted his head and let it pass by his ear, close enough to feel the heat of the blast.

Okara used the distraction. She appeared behind Frieza via teleportation, both hands already glowing with ki, and fired twin blasts into his back. They hit — she felt the impact ripple through his body — but Frieza didn't even stumble. He just turned, slowly, and looked at her with an expression that was almost curious.

"That little trick," he said. "Moving without moving. Is that the work of the Yadrats, right?"

Okara grinned. “Not telling~”

He raised one finger. A death beam fired.

Okara teleported. The beam cut through the air where she'd been standing and kept going, vanishing into the distance. She reappeared to Frieza's left and threw a punch. He blocked it with his forearm, grabbed her wrist, and threw her toward the ground.

Nail intercepted. He caught Okara before she hit, absorbed her momentum, and redirected, pushing off the ground and launching them both back toward Frieza at an angle.

Frieza watched them circle him, his smirk fading into something flatter. Colder.

"You're weaker than him," he said, nodding toward where Escarot had been taken. "Both of you. Considerably. So what exactly is your plan here? Stall me? Distract me? Surely you're not delusional enough to think you can win, even if he couldn't win, but at least he forced me to use 75% of my power… as for you, I could destroy you both using less than 30% of my power!"

Okara cracked her knuckles. "You sure love hearing the sound of your own voice…"

Nail moved.

He came in from Frieza's blind spot —and threw a chopping strike at the emperor's neck. Frieza blocked it, but Nail's other hand was already coming, a ki blast forming in his palm at point-blank range. It went off in Frieza's face.

The emperor snarled, more from indignation than pain, and backhanded Nail so hard the Namekian left a trench in the ground, however, before Frieza could follow up, Okara was on him again — teleporting in, striking, teleporting out before he could grab her. Hit and run. Over and over.

Left side. Right side. Above. Below. Each time she appeared, she struck — a punch, a kick, a ki blast — and each time she vanished before Frieza could counter. She was everywhere and nowhere, a ghost that kept slapping him and disappearing.

It was pissing him off.

"Stand still! You insolent monkey!" he screamed, and unleashed a barrage of death beams in every direction. Purple lines crisscrossed the sky like a web, filling the air with lethal light.

Okara teleported through the gaps. Nail, still pulling himself out of his trench, felt one of the beams graze his shoulder and bit down on a grunt.

Okara reappeared behind Frieza. This time she didn't punch. She grabbed his tail.

Frieza went rigid.

She pulled. Hard. Frieza's whole body jerked backward, and Nail — who had seen this coming and was already moving — drove both fists into the emperor's exposed chest. The hit landed square in the damaged area, and Frieza actually screamed. A real scream, raw and furious, and he whipped his tail free from Okara's grip with a violent motion that sent her tumbling.

"You are starting to annoy me!" he said, his voice low.

“Starting? Fuck, I need to up my game,” Okara replied with a chuckle.

His aura flared. The pressure in the air tripled, quadrupled, became something physical that made it hard to breathe. Nail felt his knees bend involuntarily. Okara's feet sank into the ground.

Frieza raised both hands above his head and a sphere of energy began forming — not as large as the Death Ball from before, but denser, more concentrated. It crackled with purple lightning, the air around it distorting so badly that it looked like the sky was bending.

"Die," Frieza said simply, and threw it.

The sphere screamed toward them. Fast. Too fast to dodge by normal means. It was going to hit, and when it did, there wouldn't be enough left of either of them to bury.

Okara grabbed Nail's arm.

"Close your eyes," she said.

They vanished.

The sphere hit the ground where they'd been standing and detonated. The explosion was massive — a pillar of purple fire shooting into the sky, flattening everything within a mile, carving a new crater into the already-scarred landscape.

A hundred meters away, Okara and Nail reappeared. Nail stumbled, dizzy from the teleportation. Okara let go of his arm and looked back at the destruction.

"That was close," Nail said.

"That was the point," Okara replied. "He's wasting energy. Every big attack like that is stamina he doesn't get back. We just need to keep making him throw them."

"Easy for you to say. You're the one who can teleport."

"Then stay close and don't fall behind."

Frieza was hovering above the new crater, scanning the area. When he found them, his expression darkened.

"Teleportation," he said flatly. "How tedious."

He pointed at them and fired a death beam. Okara teleported. It missed. She reappeared and threw a ki blast. He batted it aside. Nail came in from the side with a flying kick that Frieza caught with one hand, squeezing until something in Nail's leg cracked.

The Namekian screamed and Frieza threw him into the ground, however before he could crash, Okara teleported, caught Nail mid-air, and redirected them both toward the ground. She landed, set him down, and turned to face Frieza.

"Can you keep fighting?" Okara asked without looking at him.

"What do you think?"

"Then keep fighting."

Frieza descended slowly, landing on the ground about thirty meters away. He was breathing a little harder than before. Not much — barely noticeable — but it was there. Escarot’s attack, the barrage, the big sphere he'd just thrown — it was adding up.

"Hey, Namekian," Frieza said, looking at Nail. "Are you sure these monkeys are worth sacrificing all your people for?"

Nail spat blood and grinned. "You’re right, loud girl, he loves hearing himself talk…"

Okara snorted, “I know, right?”

ESCAROT

I was being carried.

That was the first thing I registered, the fact that someone had me slung over their shoulder like a sack of old potatoes, that and the fact and the rhythmic bouncing of their flight was doing absolutely no favors for the collection of injuries I'd accumulated over the last hour.

Then I was being dropped.

Not gently, might I add.

My back hit something hard — stone, maybe — and I gasped as every bruise and fracture I'd been ignoring suddenly demanded attention all at once.

"King Escarot," Someone said. "Lady Okara told me to get you out. You're safe now."

"Safe," I repeated. Unless I was three galaxies over, I wasn’t safe, but I liked the optimistic nature of the oblivious. "How far?"

"Far enough. We're in the eastern settlement. She said to keep you moving until you were out of his range."

I tried to sit up and my body informed me, in no uncertain terms, that sitting up was not on the agenda for the foreseeable future. My ribs screamed. My shoulder throbbed. My back felt like someone had taken a hammer to it. And my arms — the ones I'd used to push the Death Ball upward — were a mess of burned skin and dried blood.

I had pushed far beyond my limits using Surge for so long… it was honestly a miracle I was still conscious.

Sighing, I slumped back down.

"Stay still," a new voice said. "I'll handle this."

I turned my head. A Namekian was kneeling beside me. He looked young — he reminded me of the namekian that first healed me in my battle against Slug— maybe they were related… nevermind that, they are all related.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Flute. I came here with Nail."

"Why?"

Flute didn't answer right away, instead his hands hovered over my chest, and the warm light intensified, soothing my aching body. The pain in my ribs started to dull, tthe throbbing in my shoulder faded. The raw, burned mess of my arms began to itch as new skin closed over the wounds.

"You saved my people," Flute finally answered. "Why wouldn’t we try to do the same?"

“Thanks,” I replied after a moment. 

The Saiyan who'd carried me was standing a few feet back, arms crossed, watching the process with a mix of awe and impatience. He'd probably never seen Namekian healing before, or a Namekian for that matter.

"How much longer?" he asked with a hint of hostility.

"Almost done," Flute said.

The light faded, and Flute sat back on his heels.

I grinned, jumping back to my feet, doing a quick check-up of my general condition. No pain. No throbbing. No stiffness. I rolled my shoulders, flexed my fingers, pressed a hand against my ribs where Frieza's knee had turned them into gravel. Nothing. Clean. Like the fight hadn't happened.

Namekian healing was bullshit in the best possible way. I wonder if one can learn that? It would revolutionize healing for the Saiyans.

That said... I didn't feel any stronger than I had been before. Could it be... that I couldn't get any more Zenkais?

"Thanks," I said, pushing those thoughts aside

“I’ll be here just in case,” Flute replied with a smile.

POWER LEVELS

Escarot

Escarot Full Power (Base): 6,000,000.

Escarot Full Power (Base +  Surge): 7,500,000

Escarot Full Power (Ikari + Surge): 75,000,000

Nail

Full Power 2,850,000.

Okara

Okara Full Power: 2,987,000

Okara Great Ape: 29,870,000

Frieza

Frieza Final Form - Injured (75%): 90,000,000