November 3rd, Age 762: at exactly 11:43 (East City Time), Vegeta and Nappa finally land on Earth. They take out East City and confront Piccolo and co by 12:20. Soon Yamcha, Chiaotzu, Tenshinhan (and six Saibaimen) are all dead, before Vegeta calls a timeout. #HistoryofEver
After three hours of waiting for Goku, the battle begins again, and Piccolo (and Kami and the dragon balls) die before Goku finally arrives. Meanwhile, Gero’s spy robot has a field day. So many cells, so little time! It’s a shame Goku still kinda sucks at the Kamehameha though…
Goku takes out Nappa with the Ken he learned from Kaio, and even gives Vegeta a run for his money, but fails to finish the job. By now the sun is starting to set (so this battle has lasted many hours, even apart from the 3 hour wait), and Vegeta has an idea… 
Yes, the Saiyans specifically programmed their ships to land right around full moon time. But where is the moon…? Vegeta is bamboozled by Piccolo’s Namekian illusions into thinking it’s not there anymore. Naturally he blames this on Kakarot (the man, not the game).
However, there’ve been some brilliant Saiyans over the years, and one of them thought up a way of going Great Ape even without the benefit of a real moon. Vegeta proceeds to use this to seriously eff Goku up.
This ends up backfiring before long. Yajirobe reverts Vegeta to normal by slicing off his tail, and then (with remarkable timing) Gohan’s tail regrows and he goes Great Ape. Now it’s Vegeta’s turn to do some tail-trimming, but Gohan’s falling fat ass is still enough to finish him
(Daizenshuu 4 notes that Saiyan tails seem to regrow specifically during moments of crisis, such as here and during Goku’s match with Giran. Is this a coincidence, or another of their handy superpowers?)
Kuririn goes in for the kill, but Goku begs him to stop. Think of the fanboys and fangirls! Think of the merchandising revenue! All those edgy gym t-shirts! No, we have to keep Vegeta around for years and years to come.
Vegeta escapes into space, leaving Bulma and co to pick up the pieces. Night falls. On the ride home, Kuririn has an idea: Earth’s dragon balls are gone, but Vegeta mentioned that more balls might be found on Planet Namek.
Kuririn’s not the only one who heard this. Freeza’s got a nasty habit of eavesdropping via scouter, and back on Planet Freeza No.79 he kicks off a top-secret mission to obtain Namek’s dragon balls, taking along only a small, select group.
Meanwhile, Gero’s through. Clearly Goku has reached his limit and isn’t ever going to get much stronger, so all he has to do is focus on building androids that are 100% sure to beat him. And maybe let the computer in the basement keep fiddling around with cells. What’s the harm?
Tomorrow: travel plans!
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