Escarot

I was elbow-deep in a sauce I was working on when the universe decided to interrupt me, I'd been reducing my masterpiece for the better part of an hour—a recipe I'd been chasing for days, a glaze sharp enough to make even rocks taste fucking delicious—and it was finally, finally coming together, thick and glossy and just about perfect, when the kitchen doors slammed open hard enough to rattle the pans.

I did not look up, obviously, you don't look up from the perfect sauce at the wrong moment, that's how you destroy your work.

"MY KING—"

"One second."

"My king, it's urgent, it's—"

"I said one second!" I gave it three more stirs, pulled it off the heat, and only THEN turned around, wooden spoon still in hand. “Yes?”

I know I was their King, but I had hobbies, and cooking was mine… you would think they would respect the sanctity of a man’s hobby, but no… it’s like they wait specifically for when I’m doing other stuff outside fighting to bother me.

The officer in the doorway was sweating, looking like he'd run the whole way from the other side of the planet, his chest was heaving, and his eyes were wide with a particular kind of fear on his face that I hadn't seen on a Saiyan unless it involved Frieza.

Okara was sitting on the counter behind me, where she was not supposed to be, eating something she'd stolen while my back was turned, not my sauce though… I would kill her if she desecrated my work before it was completed.

"Talk," I said, looking at him.

"Someone is coming to Planet Vegeta, my king. The scouts picked a massive signature approaching up at the far edge of the system's range." He swallowed. "A fleet, command-class. We ran it against every registry we have and it came back—" his voice cracked, actually cracked "—King Cold. It's King Cold. He's coming here. Course locked straight for us!"

I was starting to wonder how long Frieza’s dad would take to come and avenge his son. 

"How long?" I asked.

"At their heading and speed... a few months, my king. Three, maybe four. They're a long way out, so it’s hard to estimate. But they're coming—"

I turned back around, picked my sauce back up, and gave it another stir.

"Okay," I said. "Thank you. Tell the guys at the station to keep tracking it and log the course every twelve hours, thanks."

Silence behind me, to the point I could almost feel him blink in shock.

"...My king?"

"That's all. You did well getting it to me fast." I tasted the sauce off the back of the spoon. Needed a bit of extra work, but it was nearing completion, the interruption hadn't killed my work. "Go on. Get some water, you look like you're about to fall over."

The officer stood there for another moment, clearly waiting for something bigger—a speech, or maybe an order to mobilize, me going Super Saiyan, but when none of it came, he bowed uncertainly and backed out, and the doors swung shut behind him.

Okara stared at me from the counter.

"That's it?" she said. "That's your reaction? Frieza’s daddy is flying here to peel us off this planet and you're worried about your delicious gravy?"

"It's more of a glaze, not gravy. And yeah." I set the spoon down. "More or less."

I mean, I'd been waiting for this. Not King Cold specifically, to be entirely honest—but this, some version of this, the other shoe. After all, Frieza had a family, disfunctional as fuck, but he had one, and besdies, empires don't shrug off the death of their heir. The only real question had ever been who came knocking and when, and now I had my answer, and honestly, a few months of warning is generous, so I'll take it.

I had honestly expected Cooler to double-cross me and come here with his dad to avenge his little brother, but it seems he’s taking a more neutral stance to this whole family business. Kind of smart from him, politically speaking he’s playing both sides and loses nothing.

Besides, while I had no idea how strong King Cold was, I was certain I was stronger, maybe it was my Saiyan pride talking, but whoever came to harm my people, would only find death on this planet.

That said, even if he was somehow strong enough to give me a challenge… Well, a few months was plenty of time to make sure I got a hold of my new power.

And once the old man was dealt with—once King Cold was a stain on my throne room floor just like his son, there was somewhere I'd been meaning to go.

Earth.

I'd been circling the idea for a while now, ever since Bardock asked to fetch his family, well, actually three things, specifically, had my attention.

One, the Senzu beans, those little green miracles that are grown by a talking cat, of all things. Eat one and you're back to full—every wound closed, every scrap of stamina restored, in a single bite, do you have any idea what that's worth to a warrior race?

Two, the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, the most iconic place on earth, where a full year passes inside for every single day out here, which meant I could put a lot of training in a short amount of time.

And last, Capsule Corp, possibly the smartest family on the planet, sitting on technology, their invention which allows them to put almost anything inside of a capsule is marvelous, and that’s the kind of technology that could drag my people out of the technological bottleneck they were being kept in, while also improving the general quality of life.

Healing, training, and tools. Everything I'd need to turn my people into the strongest race in the universe so that no one would ever enslave us anymore… everything I needed to build them into something better, all sitting on one unguarded little planet that thinks it's beneath anyone's notice.

That was a bit idealistic though… I would probably need more than just that, but… it was a start.

“So… how long before I can taste your glaze?” Okara asked, tilting her head.

Rolling my eyes, I picked my spoon back up and gave the glaze one more stir, it was almost done.

Nappa

Getting off that rock was the easy part, I just had to kill a few dozen guards to do so.

It was light work, the whole outpost was so busy mourning their dead little god, drinking and raging and whispering about what came next, that not one of them thought to watch the pod bays, so everyone had their guard down.

After killing most of the guards near the area, I took a two-man pod from the far bay, the old kind nobody logs anymore for being an outdated model, and I strapped Vegeta against my chest, sealed the hatch, and punched the launch before anyone in that miserable place even knew what had happened.

The planet shrank behind us, and for the first time in three weeks I let myself breathe.

Now came the hard part, where does a warrior go when the three most powerful beings in existence all have a reason to want him and the child in his arms dead?

King Cold, who'll be scouring the stars for Saiyan blood to pay for his son, I doubted he would allow any Saiyans to remain alive after this.

Cooler… would probably do the same.

And the usurper. Escarot, who sits on my king's throne, beloved by the very people he betrayed, would probably kill anyone with a claim to the throne.

I needed time, if I wanted the prince to grow strong, time so that he would surpass them all, so I ran toward nothing—the emptiest, most worthless corner of the star charts I could find… I set our course for a world the PTO surveyed once, tagged, and never bothered with again. No minerals worth the freight, no population worth enslaving, no strategic value of any kind, a planet so useless that the empire looked at it once and deemed it unfit for any kind of trade.

Planet Cretaceous.

I'd seen the survey myself, years ago, back when I still wore the armor proudly. A wild green hell of a world, enormous beasts with pitiful power levels. Nothing civilized had ever set foot there, and nothing ever would, because there was not one single reason to.

Which made it perfect.

Nobody sells a planet like that, nobody conquers it, nobody comes looking. Cold could search a thousand years and never think to check the one rock beneath his notice. And the best part, this worthless excuse of a planet had everything we needed, it had water, it had food, and it had the privacy we needed, which was more than enough to keep two Saiyans fed and alive for as long as we needed.

I looked down at the prince sleeping against my chest, so small, this tiny scowling warrior in the making was all that was left of the true Saiyan Empire. On this planet, he'd get stronger there than he ever could have in a palace. I'd see to it! Every day of his life, I'd train him, harden him, pour everything I know into him, until the little prince became the king he was born to be!

And then, one day, when he's grown and ready…

He'll go home, he'll tear the usurper off that throne, he'll avenge the father who was murdered and the mother who died in the dark for him. And he'll put the Saiyans back where they belong, back to the natural order, back to what we were always meant to be before a golden pretender destroyed us!

"Sleep, my prince," I murmured to the baby on my chest. "There's work ahead, for both of us."

Master Roshi

You cannot teach a boy who thinks he already knows everything.

And you especially cannot teach a Saiyan boy, who not only thinks he knows everything but is, annoyingly, stronger than his teacher by a margin that would be comical if it weren't attached to such a foul little attitude. Raditz had made that much clear within a day of his mother leaving him in my care while she explored the world with the baby.

"Why would I train with you," he'd said, arms crossed, looking down his nose at me from all of his ten years. "I could break you in half. You're an old man. I've got a power level of a thousand. You're—" he squinted, unimpressed "—barely worth reading."

That’s… rude.

I couldn't overpower him, I couldn't out-shout him. And I certainly couldn't lecture him—the boy has that darkness in him Kami felt from across the sky, that hard mean streak, and you don't sand down a mean streak by wagging your finger at it. A boy like that, you have to be clever with, you have to make him want the very thing that'll fix him, and you have to make it his idea.

I had to exploit the one thing I had over him, age and experience, by manipulating him.

So I didn't argue, I just sighed, sadly, and said, "You're right. Raw power is all you've got. Shame, really."

He bristled. Beautiful, he makes this so easy. "What's that supposed to mean, old man?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just—well. Power's the easy part, isn't it? Any brute has power. A big dumb animal has power." I shrugged. "Skill is the hard part, skill is what lets a smaller fighter beat a bigger one. But that takes discipline, and cleverness, and years of work, so I don't blame you for skipping it, it is hard, and most people who rely on brute strength simply aren't capable of the rest."

I watched the hook sink in behind his eyes. In the short amount of time I had interacted with these Saiyans, I had realized something, a Saiyan cannot abide the suggestion that there's a kind of strength he doesn't have or can’t acquire.

"I could learn anything you could teach," he snapped, baring his teeth at me. "Easily."

"Could you? I don’t know..."

“What?!” Raditz hissed.

"Strength," I said. "You think a power level is strength. How adorable."

He bristled. "What's that supposed to mean, old man?"

"It means the number you're so proud of is a starting point, boy. Nothing more." I waved a dismissive hand. "A true martial artist doesn't accept the power he's given. He learns reach past his own limit and take more than nature handed him." I sighed, as if disappointed on his behalf. "But you Saiyans never learned that, did you? You just swing what you've got and hope it's enough. I suppose your kind never produced anything truly great."

"How dare you!" he said, but his eyes had narrowed. "What would an insect like you know about power! You can't just... make yourself stronger, just like that, and even then, the Saiyans are the strongest in the universe!"

"Can't I?" I stood up out of my chair, planted my feet, and I powered up, letting my muscles swell and my frame grow and my energy climb, higher and higher, the sand kicking up around my feet, as I reached my limit.

“Your power… doubled?” Raditz muttered, using his scouter to measure my power.

"That," I said, letting it drop, "Is the result of skill. One of many. There are ways to focus your energy into a single devastating blast that’s many times stronger than yourself, and much more. Imagine what you could become with a little bit of guidance, you would probably do so much more than an insect like me. But of course—that takes discipline. Years of it. Boring, patient work. Not really the Saiyan way, is it?"

I watched the hook go all the way down.

"...Teach me," he said and it clearly cost him, so for the sake of not pushing too hard, I pretended not to notice.

"Hmm. I don't know. It's an awful lot of dull, repetitive labor. Conditioning. Fetching, carrying, the same drills a thousand times over. You'd hate it and quit in a week."

"I can handle ANYTHING you throw at me," he snarled. "I'll do it. Whatever it is. And then I'll be stronger than ever!"

"Well," I said, stroking my beard. "If you insist."

And that, is how I got a Saiyan to haul my firewood, deliver milk, carry my water, plow the old field behind the house, and swim laps around the world, all of it done with grim, gritted determination, because the boy had decided that this was the price of power and he would not be the one to flinch from it.

He complains the entire time though. "This is stupid." "How does carrying rocks teach me a technique." "You're just making me do your work, old man, I know what you're doing." And every time, I remind him he's free to quit and go back to being merely the strongest being on earth, which is nothing on his planet, and every time, his pride slams that door shut and he keeps doing as he is told.

I will teach him more eventually, and by the time I do, I have a feeling he'll be a young man I don't have to be afraid of.

You don't fix a boy like that with a speech and some minor manipulation. No no no, that would be stupid, instead, you dangle the one thing he wants, and you let him build himself into someone worthy of it, and you let him think it was his idea the whole way.

"Faster on those laps tomorrow!" I called after him as he trudged off toward the water, soaked and scowling. "A real technique needs a real foundation!"

"I HATE YOU, OLD MAN!"

Best student I've had in years, he reminds me of Ox-King during his teenage years, so unnecessarily edgy. Oh well, like Ox-King, Raditz will learn life has a lot to offer when he gets older.