King Cold

Planet Vegeta was months away, months of staring out at that uncaring boring darkness, all while I replayed that recording I had long since memorized, feeling the same cold thing harden a little further in my chest each time.

"You're watching it again."

Berryblue drifted into the room the way she always does, unapologetically uninvited, wearing that small unsettling smile fixed on her old blue face that she’s known for. She has looked exactly the same for as long as I can remember, she looked the same when she raised Frieza and Cooler, she will likely look the same long after I am gone.

"I am," I said, pressing play again.

"It won't tell you anything new." She came to a stop beside my throne, hands folded. "You've watched it a hundred times. The boy is still going to be golden. Frieza is still going to die."

Anyone else in my empire would be ash for saying that name to me in that tone, or for saying anything to me right now for that matter.

Berryblue has certain privileges given to her for her outstanding service, she has spoken to this family without fear or holding her words since before my sons could walk, she has been there for this family since before I conquered my first planet. 

"Why are you here, Berryblue…"

"I came to ask if you have a plan." She tilted her head. "Beyond rage, and the desire to kill all Saiyans, which by the way is not a plan, it's a feeling, and I hope you know Your Majesty that feelings don't win fights."

"My plan is to kill the animal that killed my son."

"How?"

I looked at her.

"You're going to make me say it," she sighed, "So I'll say it. You are stronger than your sons. You always have been. Both of them combined, on their best day, do not match you, and I have served long enough to know that for fact, not flattery." She paused. "But strength is not the question. The question is whether the strength you intend to bring is enough. And I don't think you've actually asked yourself that yet, because you're too busy hurting to think."

"Then think for me. It's what I keep you for."

"Frieza," she said, and for just a moment something flickered under that smile—she raised him; she grieves too, in her own dry way— "was special. We know this. Not because of what he was. Because of what he could have been. That boy had more raw potential than anyone in this universe, more than you, more than Cooler, more than anyone."

"I know what my son was."

"You knew what he could have been. There's a difference, and the difference is the reason he's dead." She did not soften it. "He never worked for anything in his life, and you are to blame, because you gave him everything, my lord. You spoiled him from the cradle, against all my warnings. Power he never had to earn, an empire handed to him, no reason in the universe to ever train, to ever sweat, to ever grow into that potential. Why would he? Everything already bowed, and you were pleased with him, and then he met something that didn't bow to his whims, and it killed him."

I gritted my teeth…

"Continue," I said.

"The rest is simple math," She gestured, and the frozen image of the golden boy hung between us. "Frieza fought at his full power. And the Saiyan beat him without effort, in fact, I dare say he swatted your son like an insect." She grinned a little. "Now, you walk this ship in your second form. Your preferred form, one that seals away most of what you are, and even sealed as you are, knowing that Frieza, at his absolute peak, was stronger than that second form of yours."

"I am aware of my own son's strength."

"Then follow it through, Cold. If the Saiyan flattened Frieza at full power without breaking a sweat—and Frieza was stronger than your second form—then your second form is meaningless against him. It's a death sentence. And before you say: you’ll use your third form, which I know is stronger than young Frieza… I don’t believe it would be enough, after all, that form isn’t that far apart from him."

I closed my eyes, nodding, because I had reached the same conclusion myself.

"I understand your concern, but don’t worry, I will arrive in my true form," I said, narrowing my eyes at the face of the beast that kill my son on the screen.

Berryblue inclined her head. "Now that," she said, "is a plan."

"You doubted I had one."

"I doubted you'd let yourself think clearly enough, after all… you do have a big ego. I'm pleased to be wrong." She drifted a slow circle around the throne. "May I make two suggestions?"

"You will regardless."

As if she ever cared for our permission to say anything… Who is she kidding?

"True." That smile again. "The first: bring Cooler."

"No."

"Lord Cold—"

"No." I replied, crossing my arms. "I have no use for Cooler."

She studied me for a moment, before nodding.

"As you wish," she said. "Then my second suggestion stands alone, and I think you'll like it better." She floated to face the frozen golden image. "When you kill him—do not do it quietly. Do not do it in some field with no one watching. The recording of Frieza's death spread across the entire universe before we could stop it. Every soldier, every conquered world, every petty would-be rival saw the Cold Clan brought low, they saw that your bloodline could bleed. They are still watching it. Some of them are starting to wonder what else they might get away with, now that the great heir of King Cold died."

She turned back to me, a faint smile on her face. "So take the narrative back… Make the Saiyan's death a spectacle just as he did with young Frieza. Broadcast it yourself, to every corner we can reach, let the universe watch the king who killed your heir be torn apart for everyone to see, let everyone who is thinking they can rebel against you now, what it costs to pay." Her smile widened, just slightly. "Frieza's death asked the universe a question, my lord. They question your power, your bloodline… and you should remind them why they feared you in the first place."

I would remind the entire universe why they bowed to me in the first place.

Escarot

I'd been at it since sunrise.

Transform. Hold it. Drop it. Rest. Transform again. Over and over, until the field behind the castle was scorched in a wide ring and my legs felt like wet paper.

I had no idea how to train the transformation, or how to make it easier for me, beyond the brutal repetition of going gold, again and again, trying to wear a groove into the path so that next time it comes a little easier. 

I dropped out of Super Saiyan, black hair flopping back into my eyes, and sat down hard in the dirt to catch my breath as a small voice gurgled approvingly behind me.

"You enjoying the show?" I asked watching as Broly clapped.

He was sitting where I'd left him, a few feet back, safely out of the blast radius, watching me with those big dark eyes and that gap-toothed grin like I was the most entertaining/awesome thing in the universe all while he was wrapped in a blanket, perfectly content to spend an entire day watching me set myself on fire over and over.

I scooted back over to him and he immediately grabbed two fistfuls of my hair and pulled, delighted.

"Yeah, it's back to the boring old black."

He laughed.

It's hard to think that, in the story I grew up on, this baby grows into one of strongest mortals the universe has ever seen, a force of nature… a walking apocalypse with no off switch, and he gets there through a childhood I wouldn't wish on anyone—exiled, abandoned, raised by a father who saw him as a weapon and beat the gentleness out of him one trauma at a time, until all that monstrous power had nothing left inside it but rage and madness. 

And the only reason any of that happened is that the king of the Saiyans looked at a baby with a high number and got scared, King Vegeta truly was a coward, and unworthy of leading shit.

As for Broly, well… so far his ki seemed normal—and it was exactly where it always is now. It hasn't spiked in weeks, it hasn't fluctuated, hasn't surged, hasn't done any of the wild jumping-around it used to do when he was a bit smaller.

It might be too soon to tell, but it seems his power just answers his mental state. When he's afraid, when he's hurting—it climbs, screaming, looking for something to do with all that pain. But a baby Broly who's happy? A baby Broly who feels safe, who gets fed and held and laughed with, who has nothing in the universe to be afraid of?

His power just... sits there.

No stress, no monster. It's almost stupid how simple it turned out to be… so far that is, I had no idea if this pattern would remain, but I had hope, and if not.. Well, I had hope I would be strong enough to help him through it all.

"You're going to be fine," I told him, and he blew a spit bubble at me. "Yeah. You and me both, buddy."

I set him back down, stood up, brushed off the dirt, and reached for the transformation again.

Gold tore through me as I roared. Easier than this morning? Maybe. A hair. Honestly it's hard to tell day to day—the gains are so small I have to squint to find them. The form still costs me. Entering it still takes a real effort, a deliberate reach down into that well, to that feeling… and a hard pull, and holding it still drains me faster than I'd like. By any honest measure my training has improved a tiny little bit, and there's nothing about it worth bragging on.

But that's fine, I was nothing if not persistent, and I would train until I got it. Time. That's all this needs. Time and repetition.

There's nothing wrong with me that time won't fix.

Broly clapped again from his blanket, cheering on as my aura raged in gold, and I let myself enjoy it—he really liked seeing me transform.

I held the form a few seconds before I dropped the transformation and looked up at the sky.

“I think I have a few more in me before calling it quits,” I chuckled, winking at Broly. "What do you say, do I go for it?"

Nappa

The recording had been looping in the outpost of Frieza planet XR918 for three days...

I only watched it once. Frieza, the one who was to inherit everything King Cold had made, flat on his back, and standing over him, the legend of our people, and the animal who had killed my King.

Escarot.

I waited to feel something. Hatred, maybe… Instead I just felt the cold creep of a man who's realized he's standing in the wrong place at the worst possible time.

Vegeta slept against my chest, one tiny fist curled in the strap of my armor, he was far too young to understand any of it, too young to know his mother had died, or that the plan she'd died carrying was—keep the prince alive, take the throne back from the usurper someday—was already as dead as she was.

I rocked him without thinking.

I needed to leave this planet, and fast!

A Saiyan had just killed Frieza. Publicly. In front of the entire universe. And this outpost was crawling with Cold Clan men—soldiers who'd served the family their whole lives, who worshipped that little tyrant and his father both. Right now they were grieving, in a day, two at most, the grief would curdle into something else, and they would take out their anger on the two saiyans nearest to them, us.

It wouldn't matter that I'd never raised a hand to Frieza. It wouldn't matter that I hated Escarot more than any of them ever could, to a frightened, furious Cold loyalist looking for revenge, a Saiyan is a Saiyan, and the smallest, easiest one to start with is the one sleeping on my chest.

They'd kill the prince first, just to hurt the race that hurt them…

I felt my arms tighten around him, and forced them to ease before I woke him.

That settled it, whatever came next—wherever we ran, however we lived—it started with one fact and one fact only.

We could not stay here, with each second that passed our likelihood of dying increased exponentially, and I would not let the future of the Saiyans die here!