Escarot

A feast in my honor, that I had to cook.

I stood at the head of the long table, arms crossed, watching the servants carry out the dishes I'd spent all morning on. Roasted meat. Resting properly so the juice didn't run out the second you cut it. Vegetables that weren't burnt to ash. Sauces. And a few desserts I had created from scratch.

The Saiyans at the table stared at the plates like they didn't know what to do with them.

"Is this safe to eat," one of the older warriors asked, his face showing genuine concern.

"Yes," I said.

"I eat my meat raw."

"I know. That's the problem."

For a warrior race obsessed with getting stronger, you'd think they'd care about what they put in their bodies. They do not.

I'm going to fix Saiyan food even if it kills me.

"It's good," Okara said through a full mouth, her eyes watering in pure delight. "It's really good, its perfection made food! Why are you all just looking at it?!. Eat it, you cowards!"

A few of them poked at it.

Then one of them took a bite.

And then the man made a sound I have never heard a Saiyan make since Garlik ate one of my dishes. A long, broken, guttural, orgasmic noise from somewhere deep in his chest, like his soul was trying to leave through his mouth. His eyes rolled back. His fork hit the floor. He gripped the edge of the table with both hands like the room was tilting.

"What—" He couldn't get the word out. "What IS this—"

That was the first one to try my food. And then the whole table lost its mind.

These are warriors, hardened killers. Beings who feel almost nothing for anyone, who'd watched comrades die without flinching and killed others without a care in the world. Were weeping. Openly. An old general across from me had his face in his hands, shoulders shaking, whispering "I didn't know, I didn't KNOW" over and over like a man learning the truth of the world for the first time.

Two of them were on their feet, gripping each other by the shoulders, shouting wordlessly into each other's faces.

Someone slammed a fist through the table out of sheer overwhelming emotion as he kept chewing, tears streaming down his face, staring into the middle distance like he'd seen a god and it was beautiful.

"I have eaten trash my entire life," the old warrior said, very quietly, to no one. "I have wasted my entire life."

I let myself feel a little smug about that.

"Aww, it's not that good," I said, over the chaos. "You season the meat. You let it rest. You put a little bit of these and that, and boom."

"This changes everything," the old warrior sobbed, staring at his fork like it was a holy relic.

"I’m glad."

"No, you don’t understand, my lord." He looked up at me, eyes wet, voice cracking with the weight of revelation. "Everything."

Okara snorted. "He's gonna start a religion."

"I might!"

"King Escarot, founder of the Church of Not Eating Garbage."

"I'd attend."

I snorted at the idea, grabbing my own plate as I was about to sit down and actually enjoy my own cooking for once when the air in the hall changed.

Yep… Beerus is here.

I knew it was smart to cook extra.

The doors opened and the God of Destruction and his attende entered the hall.

"Oh," I waved. "Lord Beerus!"

He stopped in front of me. Looked me up and down. Sniffed.

"Something smells good," he said.

"I cooked."

"Obviously you cooked, do you think any other chef can summon me with his delectable dishes?" He sniffed again, eyes narrowing at the table. "Now, where’s my seat? It better be the best one! Or I will destroy your planet, not I'm not promising I won't destroy this planet if the seat is good, but I'm more inclined not to on a full stomach."

"That's the spirit," I said, and pulled out a chair.

Whis bowed slightly to me. "Hello, Escarot. You've been busy."

"A little."

"A little," Beerus repeated, settling into the chair like a king who'd never once doubted there'd be a chair. "He killed Frieza." He grabbed a plate, sniffed the meat, and started eating without ceremony. Then he froze mid-bite.

His tail went rigid. Then it started lashing. Hard. Back and forth, slapping the floor.

He chewed. Slowly. Then his eyes went very wide.

"...Delicious~" he said, and his voice cracked on the word. His tail was a blur now. "This is—where did—no. No." He set the fork down with a trembling hand, took a breath, picked it right back up. "You were holding back from me… this dish is better than the last one you made—" He took another bite and made a small, strangled noise he immediately tried to disguise as a cough. "I will not be underestimated again."

"It's your new favorite, isn’t it?" I grinned.

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to. Your tail's about to take off."

His tail immediately went still by force of will, vibrating with the effort. "It is not doing a thing. Eat your food and shut it or I will destroy you."

Whis hid a smile behind his hand.

I let it go for now, push too hard and he might actually destroy me.

Beerus pointed his fork at me between bites. "Congrats on killing Friiza, though. I'll admit I expected more from him. Frieza's a little cockroach, very good at not dying." He shrugged. "Then again, it makes sense."

"What does?"

"You." He gestured vaguely at me with the fork. "You trained under me. For what, a day? A week?"

"About that."

I think it was longer.

"There you go." He went back to eating. "Doesn't matter how long. Anyone who trains under me, even for a single day, turns into an apex predator out there. It's just how it works." He paused for a moment. "Frieza never trained under anybody. He just had power handed to him at birth. That made him soft and lazy. I wonder how things woud’ve ended if he had trained..."

I would’ve died, because he would’ve reached Golden Frieza.

Okara, still on the floor, raised her head. "I helped."

"You did not," Beerus said.

"I did too!"

Beerus held his plate up without looking at me. "More."

I took it, instead of letting one of the servants do it. I liked Beerus but I knew he enjoyed being treated like the deity he was, and sure he has a soft spot the size of a moon for me, but he also has the emotional maturity of a housecat, which balances it out, so the fastest way to keep this planet in one piece and my ass undestroyed is to keep his plate full.

Also he's my favorite character, him and Cell, which I might have killed before he was even born due to the fact I killed Frieza.

I refilled his plate and the celebrations continued.

Though I had the nagging feeling I would come to regret cooking for my people later, but oh well, that's a problem for future Escarot.

King Cold

The recording would not stop playing.

Not because anyone was forcing it, because it had spread like a virus, taking roots in every corner of the universe without slowing down.

By the time it reached me, it had already passed through half the Planetary Trade Organization—officers, soldiers, conquered worlds, every backwater outpost with a receiver. My son's death, broadcast across the empire he was meant to inherit. 

And his death had been passed hand to hand. Watched and re-watched, immortalizing his humiliation for generations to come.

Until eventually, it reached me.

I sat very still and I watched my son die.

Frieza my prodigious son on the ground begging, and standing over him, a small figure wreathed in gold. Then almost as quick as it had started it was over. Quick. Almost gentle, which was somehow worse. The boy didn't gloat, didn't celebrate, he looked down at my son the way a man looks down at a worm.

He looked down at my son like he wasn’t worth the time.

I had them pause it on his face.

I knew that Saiyan.

It took a moment to connect the dots. The hair was wrong, so were the eyes, but the face beneath it was a face I'd seen before. 

When my son and I went to Planet Vegeta to introduce the monkeys to their new master. A formality where the pack of savages bowed to their betters.

Except they had a new King.

A boy, small, calm, entirely unbothered by the two beings who could erase his species with a thought. He'd looked up at Frieza, at me, with that strange flat steadiness, and he had told us, plainly, what had happened to King Vegeta.

He'd killed him.

I remember being amused. A child killing the king. I'd asked why.

The boy said Vegeta had disrespected Lord Beerus. The God of Destruction. And that he, the boy, had killed his own king for it—to spare the planet from a god's anger.

I never thought to question their tale, I honestly didn’t care if it was a clever lie to explain a power grab; after all, why would I ever waste a second glance on a dirtball full of monkeys.

…

I should have listened more carefully. 

I should’ve seen the signs of a future rebellion, and crush it before it began.

I should’ve killed him when he was nothing more than a child with a power level that didn't even merit a second look.

I let him live because he was beneath killing. And now he stands over my son's corpse as my legacy dies with him.

The Super Saiyan...

I'd heard the monkeys' little tale, the way you hear all the legends of conquered things. A fairy story they told to comfort themselves, to have hope that one day they can be more than just what they are meant to be, slaves, so like always… I'd dismissed it.

I would not be dismissing things anymore.

I rose from my throne.

My empire was fracturing, rebellions on the outer edge. No heir worth the Cold name—only Cooler, scheming somewhere, thinking I don't know what he's thinking. I have no time to waste, nor any patience left! I am old and I am tired and I have just watched the last good thing I made die on a screen in front of strangers.

But what I have… is power.

More than my sons. More than that golden child could ever hope to understand.

"Set a course," I said. "For the Saiyan homeworld."

The officer hesitated. "Sire, the rebellions—"

"Will wait."

I looked at the frozen image one last time, that little Saiyan will pay for this, I will not make that mistake twice, I will take everything he has ever loved, and then I will take him, and there will be no legend left to comfort anyone, because today marks the last day the Saiyans were allowed to breath in this Universe of mine!