Escarot

I flew toward the castle as my aura raged around me in gold waves, kicking up wind beneath me.

By now, Bardock and his team had handled the Ginyu Force. Most of them, at least. One was still breathing out there—trying to escape from what I could feel—but I couldn't pin down who the coward was. 

It wasn't Ginyu. The strongest one was already down, it had been the second to die. Beyond that, I couldn't tell who it was. Maybe it was Reccome.

I suppose it didn’t matter anyways. They would handle it.

The castle came into view. I slowed down as I approached the main entrance. Two guards were stationed at the gate, they saw me coming.

Both of them went rigid.

I landed in front of them. The gold aura died down but didn't fade. My hair was still spiked, and golden.

One of the guards opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Closed it.

"K-King E-e-escarot!" He stammered hiis eyes were wide. Not just wide. Stretched. Like his brain was refusing to process what he was seeing.

I couldn’t blame the guy. To him, I was a myth. Every Saiyan grew up hearing about the Super Saiyan. The legend. The story parents told their kids. A warrior of golden hair with unmatched power who appeared once every thousand years. Nobody actually believed it was real, though most wished it was, they all thought of the legend as nothing more than a fairy tale.

And now, against all odds, I was standing in front of him.

"Your Majesty, I—you're—I—" He couldn't finish a sentence.

I didn't have time for this.

"Where's Okara?" I asked.

He pointed inside without speaking. His hand was shaking.

I walked past him into the castle. The second guard didn't even try to talk to me. He pressed himself against the wall like he was trying to become part of it.

I found Okara in the main hall. She was walking toward me with Nail beside her. She had that look on her face—the one where she was trying to act unimpressed but wasn't quite pulling it off.

"That…. Looks so fucking cool," she said. "You fucking bastard!."

I almost laughed.

"This power..." Nail said, staring at me. "It's immense. I never thought such a level of power was even possible. It's beyond my wildest dreams."

He wasn't wrong.

I knew what the Super Saiyan was supposed to be. I'd seen it in the anime.  Watched Goku achieve it on Namek, watched him push past Frieza when nothing else worked. I knew the look of it, I knew the purpose of the transformation.

But knowing something and feeling it are two different things.

This was so much more than I expected.

Every cell in my body was shaking. Like each one was plugged into something infinite. The strength wasn't just in my muscles. It was everywhere. In my bones. In my blood. In the air around me.

It was almost too much. My body felt like it was on the brink of exploding. Like the power inside me was pressing outward against my skin and it took constant effort to hold it in. 

I kept my expression neutral. 

"Are you gonna stay like that now?" Okara asked as she scratched the back of her head. "Is this permanent or..."

I shook my head. "No. I'm just getting used to the feeling before I go back to normal."

"Used to it?"

"Yeah. I think it'll help me control the transformation better if I can get used to what it feels like."

That was the truth. Or part of it.

The other part was something I remembered from watching the anime. Back then, transforming into a Super Saiyan wasn't as easy as the later sagas made it look like. It wasn't like flipping a switch and boom your hair was yellow. 

Before all that, the ones that had achieved the Super Saiyan had to push and rage and force their bodies into the transfromation like they were breaking through a wall. 

Every time they transformed, you could see the effort. The gritting teeth. The shouting. It wasn't second nature yet. It was a fight every single time.

That changed over time. With training, with repetition, the transformation got easier. Until eventually it became like breathing as they could do it without thinking.

But needless to say, I wasn't there yet.

So, I was taking my time to understand how this works, my time to really memorize what this state felt like from the inside—and perhaps this would make my mastering of the Super Saiyan easier.

So I held it. Let the power wash through me. Paid attention to how it sat in my chest. How it moved through my arms when I clenched my fists. How it responded when I breathed in, breathed out.

Nail was quiet for a moment. "Okara told me something," he said. "I didn't believe it at first. But I need to ask."

I wonder what he wants to know.

"Is it true that you let Frieza transform? Instead of killing him when he was at his weakest?"

Oh… that. Fuck, I was expecting that question to never come.

I rubbed the back of my neck.

"Yeah," I said. "That's true."

Nail stared at me.

"I wanted to..." I paused with a chuckle. Not because it was funny. Because there wasn't really a good way to say it. "It just felt… wrong to kill him like that."

Silence.

Nail didn't blink.

"You wanted to," he repeated slowly.

"Yeah."

"Kill Frieza."

"Right."

"At his strongest."

"I guess you could say that."

Nail's jaw tightened.

“It all worked out, didn’t it?”

"You're an idiot," Nail said.

"Yeah, that’s fair."

"No, you don't understand. You're not just an idiot. You are a profound idiot. A once-in-a-generation idiot."

I didn't say anything.

"Do you understand what would have happened if you lost? If he'd been stronger than you expected? If that final form had been too much?"

"I didn't lose."

“He didn’t lose,” Okara nodded.

See? She gets my point.

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT."

Nail's voice echoed through the hall. The guards outside probably heard it. He took a breath. Composed himself. When he spoke again, his voice was lower but no less intense.

"You gambled the fate of every Saiyan on this planet, of your people. You gambled everything—for what? A better fight?"

When he puts it like that, it almost sounds bad…

“I promise I won’t do it again?”

Nail pinched the bridge of his nose. "You Saiyans are insane. All of you."

"Probably," I said.

Okara crossed her arms. "That's just rude, Green guy."

Nail turned his attention to her. "Rude? He literally admitted—"

"So what? Maybe this is normal by Saiyan standards. Did you think about that?" Okara nodded to herself. "You're sitting there judging him like he's some reckless idiot, but maybe this is just how Saiyans operate. Maybe letting your enemy reach full power so you can crush them at their best is completely normal for his species and you're just—" She gestured vaguely at him. "—applying Namekian morals to a Saiyan king."

Nail stared at her. "Namekian morals."

"Yeah."

"You think this is about morals."

"I think you're being culturally insensitive."

"I'm being—" Nail pinched the bridge of his nose. "He risked the entire planet."

"And he saved it."

"After risking it."

"Details."

"That's not how consequences work."

Okara shrugged. "Sounds like a Namekian word."

Nail looked at me. I raised my hands. Don't drag me into this.

"She's messing with you," I said.

Nail turned back to Okara, she was grinning.

"I kind of am," she said.

Nail closed his eyes. Took a breath. Walked away again without saying anything.

Okara watched him go and chuckled. "He's SOOOO easy to annoy."

Cooler

I watched the footage.

Again and again, and again…

This hadn't turned out like I expected.

Escarot standing over my brother, golden aura blazing. Frieza—not just defeated—humilliated. Cut down like he was nothing. Like he was a low-level soldier who'd gotten in over his head.

I paused it on a single frame. Escarot's face. No strain. No exhaustion. Not even satisfaction. Just cold, flat indifference. Like killing the emperor of the universe had been a chore he wanted to get done before lunch.

I paused the display.

He wasn't going to bow to me. I knew that now. When this was all over—when my father was dead and the empire was mine—Escarot wasn't going to kneel. He'd have no reason to. He'd already beaten Frieza. What could I possibly offer him that he couldn't just take?

Even if I was still stronger than him, he had gone past the point of compliance for the sake of survival.

So. Two paths laid ahead of me.

The first: continue the alliance. Move forward with the original plan. Help each other kill my father. The problem with this was obvious. Once King Cold was dead, there was nothing binding us together, things would turn on me.

He might even honor whatever agreement we'd made. But I'd be depending on the word of a Saiyan, and I didn't like depending on things I couldn't control.

The second path was different. Simpler in some ways. More complicated in others.

Frieza was dead. My father didn't know that yet—he was out in the outer territories, dealing with some rebellion on the far edge of the empire. He'd find out soon. And when he did, he'd have a problem.

No Frieza. No heir. Just me.

My father had always favored Frieza. Everyone knew it. Frieza was the golden child—the prodigy, the one with the most potential, the one destined to inherit the empire. I was the older brother. The spare. 

But Frieza was gone now.

And my father didn't have anyone else.

If I played this right—if I was the one who delivered the news, if I framed it correctly, if I positioned myself as the stable option in a moment of crisis—I could walk into my father's presence and walk out as his acknowledged successor. No fighting. No killing. Just politics.

Then together with my father, we could ‘avenge’ my little brother.

After that… well.

The empire would be mine. Legitimately. No need for Escarot. No need for the alliance. No need to put myself within arm's reach of a variable I have lost complete control of.

That said… as long as my father lived, I would never have complete control over the empire.

I tapped my finger on the armrest.

The first path gave me my father's head but put me at the mercy of a Saiyan afterward.

The second path gave me the empire but left my father alive to potentially take it back if he sires another child he deems more worthy.

Neither option was clean. Nor the path I wanted.

I'd built my entire strategy around the assumption that Escarot would be a useful tool—powerful enough to handle Frieza, not powerful enough to be a threat. A scalpel. Precise, limited, controllable.

Easy to discard when all was said and done.

I still had the upperhand in power alone, but if his growth continues at this pace… that might not be the case forever.

I stopped tapping.

Maybe there was a third option. Something I hadn't considered yet. Something that combined the advantages of both paths without the weaknesses.

“Escarot… what to do with you?”