One-Nine vanished without a trace. Bardock, overflowing with a vibrant, scarlet aura, scanned the environment, suspecting the enemy to flash in from a blind spot. One thing he didn't expect was a direct, straight, head-on assault. That was why when One-Nine popped up in front of Bardock with a stiff headbutt, it sent the warrior staggering back.

The female Android vaulted over her right side, gliding over the air before driving her foot in an aerial cartwheel kick and stomping Bardock's face into the ground. The Saiyan's agonizing grunt joined in on the monotonous cracks of the flames around in the lab. One-Nine swung her left leg, hooking her fallen opponent up with her foot and flinging him in the air. The sassy Android swung her entire body around and drove her right leg into Bardock's face with a roundhouse kick.

"D-Damn it, One-Nine!" Android 19 shrieked out when the entire laboratory crumbled. Like a speeding locomotive, Bardock crashed through titanium walls, laboratory equipment, chemical tanks, and hundreds of meters of millennia-old ice forming the glacier structures of the Northern Region. The violent aftereffect made the laboratory begin to fall apart, which provided Piccolo with everything he needed to focus his effort on when the ground felt the least stable and wreckage of collapsing glacier and constructed structures began pelting the energy-draining pest on his back to break out of 19's hold.

Bardock winced in pain. His eyes had forgotten what light looked like in the ten to twenty minutes that he and Piccolo had spent inside that glacial mountain formation. Before the Saiyan's eyes could truly get used to the sunlight and its overwhelming reflection in the ice, a merciless pulse of pain resonated through Bardock's body, blacking him out for a second. One-Nine had driven her elbow into Bardock's gut, collapsing the glacial structure whole and causing a shock wave that bounced Bardock off the ground.

With her right hand behind her back and adopting a mocking, sassy expression, One-Nine chopped at Bardock's Adam's apple. The look in the Saiyan's eyes became dulled out as she wheezed trapped air through his injured airways. With the weightless sack of bones still flying, One-Nine thrust her elbow into Bardock's gut, diving in up close and personal to the Saiyan as she pummeled him without reprieve. A gallant back vault kick sent Bardock flying past the clouds into the air.

With a pop, One-Nine appeared before her beloved punching bag and smacked Bardock with the back of her hand, making the Saiyan flip over in mid-air as he offered no resistance of his own to the impending beat down. Switching the dominant side multiple times, One-Nine slapped Bardock with the back of her hand, trying to wake the semi-conscious Saiyan up. When gravity enacted its dominant influence over the dazed Saiyan, One-Nine stopped his fall by catching him by the collar and pulling him in for a quick drain of a fraction of the man's Ki.

One-Nine's look widened in shock when Bardock's knee gutted her in the navel area and swat her aside from the Saiyan, undoing her grip at once. The alien warrior roared out with sincerity, spitting up blood from his injured throat but continuing to bellow regardless as the bright, white landscape of the Northern Region became pinkish red from the intense luminescence of Bardock's King Kai Fist.

The two warriors collided with each other, slamming their elbows together. As the struggling fighters pushed back from each other, One-Nine transferred the rest of her momentum into a backflip kick, but Bardock leaned back his upper body, avoiding the crescent-shaped kick just narrowly. The Android assassin vanished, appearing right above Bardock as she plunged down, but Bardock caught her dive kick and swung the Android teen aside.

The Saiyan warrior put up his knee to absorb One-Nine's hip slam. One-Nine bent her body in a flexible and unorthodox manner, bending her spine back as she smacked with the back of her fist behind her, catching Bardock in the eye, but such an odd attack carried little weight. The pale Android thrust her fist in an attempted one-inch punch, but Bardock let out a Kiai shock wave that canceled its pressure out. The two became entangled in a wild exchange of blows. Bardock panted and shook his head a few times, throwing handfuls of sweat that was soaking him aside.

One-Nine vanished and appeared a bit further away, using this distance between the two for a soaring side kick. Bardock winced in pain as he felt the stiffness and weight behind that blow as he blocked it. The Saiyan bellowed in pain as One-Nine swung her whole body around in a lash of a spinning kick that swatted Bardock rolling aside. The relentless Android snapped directly in front of Bardock and one-inch'ed him again. The Saiyan's body froze up as his irises and pupils faded out from Bardock's eyes.

The Saiyan coughed out blood in his tortured grunt as the glacial mountain behind him collapsed into icy rubble from the resonating air pressure wave from One-Nine's fist. The cruel Android caught Bardock by his hair and pulled him in for a draining stranglehold. The Saiyan shook and struggled feebly in her hold, but his consciousness faded in and out.

This felt like an impossible battle to win. Bardock had to push far beyond his limits to even dance with this pretentious teen assassin and whenever the two left everything they had on the table, the greedy bitch just grabbed hold of him and drained a mass of his Ki, replenishing everything she had lost while Bardock only bled more stamina. It was almost like Piccolo had been right. As little as Bardock wanted to admit it. Mere guts and bravado wouldn't have cut it here.

Piccolo looked around. He had plenty of his Ki drained by the enemy already, and these pesky Androids could conceal their presence. There was nothing anyone could do to track them, which made them an especially nasty enemy to face. 19 dashed in, blindsiding Piccolo with a heavy downward hook. A headbutt threw Piccolo off-balance further. The Super Namekian was quick to erect a block in a defensive position, but when the obese artificial warrior drove his power blow into the center of Piccolo's cross-shaped block, the Super Namekian could only exclaim in strain.

The blocking arms swung weightless back down. Piccolo felt nothing within them as if they had gone completely numb and someone had secretly pumped them both full of lead. Android 19 threw careful and calculated blows and kicks Piccolo's way while the stunned Super Namekian panted and had no other choice but to take the pummeling. 19 jumped up with aerial maneuverability beyond his body build and socked the tip of his boot right into Piccolo's nose. In between each flurry, 19 stopped to observe Piccolo's reaction methodically, adjusting his position, speed, and method of attack to keep the enemy trapped and in his mercy.

19's hand wrapped around Piccolo's busted face and tilted the Super Namekian in the air, draining the Super Namekian of some more of his Ki before the Android drove his forearm almost entirely through Piccolo's gut like a jackhammer blow. Coughing up heaps of purple, with whited-out eyes, Piccolo flew off into the icy waters foaming below the battlefield.

"I have drained a sufficient amount of energy now. Proceed with elimination now, One-Nine." Android 19 turned to his brattier associate.

"What? No way!" One-Nine flipped out. "This old meat bag hasn't transformed yet! I ain't getting bossed around by you anymore! I need more power!"

19's eyes lit up with a red gleam. Before Bardock could say or do anything, intense red beams left the eyes of the obese Android and slammed right into One-Nine's back, incinerating the back of her extravagant outfit and sending the smoldering Android teen plunging into the waters below as well.

"Disobey direct orders by 21 to keep our work a secret? You must be malfunctioning. I will report this bug to 21. Maybe she'll make it in time to patch it out of the other One-Units." Android 19 muttered while levitating above the watery grave of his bratty comrade.

"Attacking your own partner from behind? That's cold even for me..." Bardock chuckled, fixing the tattered wristband. His King Kai's Fist Ki erupted and died out at a whim as the Saiyan warrior tried his best to keep it blazing. If this bastard truly had drained most of Piccolo's Ki, it would have all been for naught, but it wasn't like he'd let them escape either.

"We are Androids. We do not know concepts like camaraderie. We are merely tools to fulfill the orders of Android 21, that is all." Android 19 explained, looking down at Bardock as he kept careful tabs both on injured Piccolo, his own partner whom he sent down, and the fading fighting spirit of Bardock. "We work with one another because each of us serves the same goal, but we feel no attachment toward one another or to ourselves. We do not crave power either. That is where One-Nine was malfunctioning. The only reason we drain Ki is to fulfill our orders. Wishing power for power's own sake is just inefficient, it serves no purpose."

Bardock clenched his fists, the King Kai Fist's aura died out around him as the Saiyan grabbed hold of his aching chest and began panting. Descending a few paces down with each pant. He couldn't collapse here, not now. And yet... It had been as if the enemy had surrounded him and stabbed at his chest from all directions, bypassing the ribcage and going straight for the center of his beating heart.

"I've... I've got no time for this bullshit!" Bardock yelled out, throwing his fists aside as he erupted in a crystalline aura of Ki. "Back home... My wife's in pain back home. She's hurting real bad and... Maybe she'll be okay and that Namekian shrimp will heal her, but I can't miss her opening her eyes. I absolutely can't miss that!"

"Hmm?" Android 19 looked up at the gloomy skies over his head. "This is unusual. We could not have been fighting long enough to see nighttime. That would put us behind schedule..." In a rush to obliterate his enemy, Android 19's eyes lit up with scarlet again, sending piercing eye beams in Bardock's direction that slammed straight into the center of Bardock's head, cocking the warrior's belfry back.

"Bardock!" Piccolo yelled out, emerging from underwater. Android 19 caught the soaring punch of the Super Namekian and kicked him aside before a bright thunderbolt directly behind him stopped the scene of a brutal battle. 19 turned around and began scanning the darkened skies, looking around him at the unnatural thunderstorm that shouldn't have been a natural occurrence in this remote, frigid, arctic region.

Bardock's head swung back into place. The Saiyan gazed at Android 19 with teal-colored eyes. Bardock's vibrant aura turned the Saiyan's hair spiky and continued to wash them upward with an intense stream of erupting energy while the wild warrior stared at the obese Android with death-inducing, silent rage.

"I've done a lot of things I regret in my life. Missing the birth of both of my children is one of them. While my wife worked hard, I was off-planet fighting wherever I was stationed at the time..." Bardock closed his eyes, clenching his fist before his chest. "This time... This time things will be different! When my wife opens her eyes, when she recovers from her sickness, I'll be there for her! I won't let some fat chunk of iron and his backstabbing drama act get in the way of that!"

To seal his words into stone, the violent Saiyan warrior exploded in a blinding flash of light. Normally flashes shimmered and died out once the energy that ignited them burnt out, but Bardock's flash settled down on an ethereal golden aura, surrounding a golden-colored warrior of teal eyes and a seething look.

"A S-Super Saiyan?" Android 19 muttered with a confused look, covering up from the luminous effects contrasting the doom and gloom of the dark, stormy skies.

An ethereal, golden ring of light expanded from a point of flashing singularity in Bardock's core. The Super Saiyan appeared before Android 19 in a blink of light, ravaging the entire body of the obese, artificial assassin with a merciless flurry of punches and kicks. 19 could only screech and whine as his chubby body became littered with gruesome indentations and his marshmallow-like face became malformed. Bardock concluded his punishing rush with a high kick to the bottom of 19's jaw.

The round-body killer disappeared through the clouds, parting them aside and letting in a stream of sunlight. The gleaming light danced in the snowy storm that resulted from the rampant shock waves in the area, creating a brilliant whirlwind of diamond dust as Bardock pursued the speeding, heavyweight arrow of his opponent.

The Super Saiyan rammed his forehead into that of Android 19 before hammering his fists downward twice and kicking 19 in the gut. The stiff slam comparable to the perfection of a bo staff slam sent ripples through the Android's flesh as the mechanical assassin shrieked out in torment. With a proud battle cry, Super Saiyan Bardock drove his intertwined hands down with a double ax handle slam, forming a booming pillar of freezing water after Android 19 planted into the water bottom-first like a diving cannonball.

"This... This makes no sense..." Android 19 whined as he pulled his hand out of the water and pulled himself on a glacial chunk floating in the water. A part of the many icy mountains devastated by the battle. "The Super Saiyan transformation... The crucial X-Factor..."

Android 19 froze in terror when the brutish Super Saiyan warrior descended right in front of him with his arms crossed, staring down at the trembling and mewling opponent of his that had caused the pair so much trouble earlier. Bardock let out an angered shout and punted Android 19 like a soccer ball, crashing through the peak of a handful of icebergs before running out of momentum and bouncing off of another. Android 19 flopped into the freezing water again, face first.

"Of course you wouldn't understand it, you lump of nuts and bolts." Bardock spat with disdain, staring at his whining opponent, who tried to swim to a platform of solid ground under his feet, eyes wide in dread. "You believe yourselves to be infallible fighting machines, yet you do not understand emotion. It is emotion that makes a fighter's strength fluctuate, mine more than anyone else's. I'll be the first one to admit that hesitation and fear can make your battle power weaken, but desperation, rage, and so many more emotions can amp you up for battle. You're giving up on power when you give up on emotions."

"I see..." Android 19 panted, pulling himself out onto a glacial platform. "So, 21's theory about the transformation being triggered through an exceptional emotional trigger was correct. You felt a desperate need to defeat us in order to see your beloved wife and greet her when she wakes up, amped up by that desperate need, you ascended..."

"Bardock! Destroy him, quick!" Piccolo yelled out as a warning. "He's likely communicating with the other Androids, he's relaying the information from this battle to them!"

"It doesn't matter..." Bardock closed his eyes, clenching his fist in front of him and then relaxing it. "Plus, it's not like I can just destroy him. This Super Saiyan form... It's far from the legendary, flawless ascension from our legends. I've been fighting at the level of King Kai's Fist x 50 already and this power barely feels like much more than that. It merely takes away the drawbacks of loss of stamina and the devastation of one's body."

"You mean..." Piccolo staggered back. "You still can't beat him in this form?"

"You were right, Super Namekian," Bardock closed his eyes while Android 19 fumbled back to his feet. "These guys are a pain in the ass to fight. If I fought him like this, I'd just wail on him and wail on him before I tired out. Once in a while, this bastard would slip a quick drain in on me and keep growing stronger until, eventually, I'd tire out, and he'd overpower me again. The only answer is to do away with him with all my power, hit him with my best shot all at once."

"But you can't, because he'd absorb that..." Piccolo's wide eyes twitched as his pupil became thinner than ever before.

"That's right, he'd scoop it all up and power-up with the fabled Ki of a Super Saiyan in a single gobble." Bardock clenched his hand as his expression soured. When Bardock's hand opened up, a sparkling, azure energy sphere formed a star-like shape, as if lightly elevated in the Super Saiyan's hand. "Thing is, I'd much rather hit him with everything I've got and die immediately than waste my time. Even if kicking this guy's ass overnight would be my style normally, Gine is waiting for me at home!"

"Y-You're insane!" Android 19 shrieked out, putting up his hands in preparation to absorb Bardock's attack. "I'll take it all in! Give me your best shot, Super Saiyan, I'll send it right back!"

"Alright then, piece of scrap, let's see if you can handle this power. This is my last gamble. This is everything! Rebellion Trigger!" Bardock yelled out, launching his flashing energy sphere and making it erupt in the shape of a destructive energy wave as it hurried toward Android 19, completely engulfing the sky in an azure flash. The icebergs crumbled and began collapsing. Android 19 grunted as the platform he stood on began sending showers of icy shards up and quaked uncontrollably. Still, the body of the thick Android was sturdy and could keep his balance better than most.

Android 19 whined out in pain when the almighty Rebellion Trigger, delivering all of Bardock's desperation and desire to do away with his enemy and go home to his sick wife, hit the absorbing marbles in the center of the Android's hands. The stress of the energy attack was unlike anything that the Android had ever absorbed, without a doubt. 19's sleeves unraveled and burnt up. Inch by twitchy inch, Bardock's attack began pushing the Android down and the ice platform that 19 stood on collapsed utterly while the brisk oceans split underneath the feet of the mechanical warrior.

"This power... The Ki of a Super Saiyan!" Android 19 yelled out with an excited tone. His expression turned manic as the Android began raising his oppressed hands up, taking in more and more of the energy that Bardock sent his way. "It's like nothing else in the entire universe! Overwhelming... Almighty... Turbulent and brutal... I'm taking it all in, Bardock!"

"Tsk..." Piccolo grunted in frustration, spreading his feet out and extending his right hand out while he grabbed hold of his wrist with the free hand. "I guess I always have to clean up after you..."

"Heh... Sorry... Then again, he is using your crazy power against me so you're kind of cleaning up after yourself too." The Super Saiyan looked to Piccolo, who burst forth with an intense aura and began channeling his remaining energy into a single Ki bullet at the tip of his open palm.

"So, your plan is to hit me from my blind spot while I am absorbing energy?" Android 19 turned his sky-blue eyes to Piccolo. "Useless. I expected more from the being carrying the wisdom, might, and experience of your race's greatest warrior, Earth's Kami, and its most frightening demon within you."

"You can tell me all about that when you get gone to Hell!" Piccolo said before firing his Ki bullet racing toward Android 19. A pulsing energy ring lingered as an aftershock of the speedy blitzer as it homed in on the mechanical combatant. Android 19 merely smirked, keeping one of his hands up while he lowered the second in the direct way to intercept Piccolo's attack.

"Very well, I'll take your Ki too then!" Android 19 announced with vigorous glee.

"He's keeping hold of my attack with just one hand? What a bastard..." Bardock cursed in frustration before Piccolo's chuckle spread through the battlefield. Before his attack could touch and make contact with the consuming gemstone etched onto Android 19's arm, it raced in a circle around the Android, homing in on his back instead.

"Chasing Bullet!" Piccolo yelled out the name of the technique he just now used.

"Chasing Bullet? You've miscalculated, Piccolo, it is true that this attack can maneuver around my hands but it lacks the power to do any damage to me at this point!" Android 19 taunted his opponent before feeling a shocking tingle in his back. With petrified eyes, the Android turned around, popping bursts of smoke and flame, spitting nuts and bolts and machine oil from them riddled his body. All this tension in his body didn't help the stress of competing against Super Saiyan Bardock's Rebellion Trigger.

"N-No way... You aimed for that..." Android 19 grumbled out as all from inside of his body light boomed out in radiant rays through every wound and crevice all over it. "The hole in my body from your Special Beam Cannon earlier..."

"Sorry, Bardock, as I've said, I'll be taking out your trash," Piccolo smirked, clenching his fist and detonating the Chasing Bullet that had entered inside of Android 19's body through the hole in his front and back and detonated from within. The resulting expansion of energy inflated Android 19 and made his ballooning flesh ripple like a stressed water balloon before... It just popped.

Bardock grit his teeth, changing the direction of his Rebellion Trigger to boom alongside the ocean's surface and not directly into and through the Earth's core. The energy wave consumed the remaining parts of Android 19 and reduced them to smoldering bits. After the colossal energy wave beamed out into space harmlessly and dissipated somewhere halfway across to another system into nebulous shrouds of shapeless spirit, the remaining singed scraps scattered across the remaining glacial platforms or sank into the numbing depths below.

In a blink, the golden gleam vanished from Bardock's hair and his shining golden aura turned transparent and diamond-pure. The worn-out warrior hunched over and panted for a second before looking up to Piccolo who just turned his disapproving scowl away from his rival while Bardock chuckled to himself.

"Will you still want to settle our stuff now that I've become a Super Saiyan?" Bardock wondered, with a hint of sarcasm.

"Just hurry and find Cold's remains. With any luck, he's still alive and can explain to us what the heck's going on here." Piccolo ground his fangs.