Escarot

I was… floating?

I opened my eyes and there was green everywhere, all around me, a thick soupy sea of healing fluids, tingling all over my body, and for a while I just floated there and looked at it, not thinking anything at all, because I hadn’t woken up enough to think.

Then something clicked over somewhere, a valve… maybe a switch, and the fluid started to move, draining.

I felt the level drop past my face, then past my chest, before I felt the weird cold weight of my own body coming back to me, an inch at a time as the support of the fluid went away. My feet touched the bottom of the tank, as the hatch cracked open with a hiss of pressure.

Cold air hit my wet body and I flinched, before I reached up with one hand and peeled the mask off still attached to my face, and the tubes that came from my chest. And before I could speak, I coughed. My body felt fine, but… off somehow.

"...Okay," I croaked. "How long was I out?"

I got a hand on the rim of the hatch and I pulled myself out, dripping green fluid all over what I dimly recognized as the medical wing. Which made sense, considering how badly wounded had the fight with Cold left me.

It seemed however that my medics had managed to not only nurse me back to health, but restore my arm in the process. They deserved a raise… not sure if they got paid, but if they did, they definitely deserved one.

I looked down at my arm. There was a scar running around the place where King Cold had cut it off, but otherwise, it was perfectly fine. I flexed my fingers before throwing a tentative punch into the air, with the resulting air pressure slamming into the wall in front of me, shattering it.

"Huh," I said. “Not bad…”

Honestly, better than not bad. The arm felt like it had always been there, and my body, off as it felt, was humming with more than it used to. Whatever those months in the tank had done, I’d come out the other end stronger, I think. Figures. Nearly dying always did agree with the Saiyans.

I stretched, cracked my neck, and started looking around for a towel, or an officer, or ideally someone who could tell me how much I’d missed, and that’s when I noticed the other tank. It was across the room from mine, glowing the same soft green, humming the same quiet hum. Another heavily injured saiyan, floating in the fluid.

I almost didn’t look twice. I mean, Saiyans almost kill each other on a daily basis; so it made sense there’d be somebody else in here, however, before I could take another step, the shape inside it drifted, and the light caught the hair, revealing a face I knew better than my own.

Okara.

I crossed the room in a single step, and stopped in front of the glass, and just… looked at her.

She was a wreck.... With more injuries that I wanted to count, floating six feet in front of me in a tank identical to the one I’d just climbed out of… and a single thought crossed my mind… who had done this?

I put my hand on the glass.

“…What happened to you,” I muttered.

This must have happened while I was asleep… Wait. Could it be…? Did she fight Cooler? If she’s still alive, and so am I… then does that mean she managed to become a Super Saiyan?

However, before I could chase that thought any further, the doors at the end of the wing hissed open and a small stampede of medics poured in.

"My King!" The one in front nearly tripped over his own feet stopping. "You're awake!? You're out of the tank! you shouldn't be out of the tank!"

"Little late for that." I yawned. "How long was I under?"

"Si-six months, my King. Give or take."

Six months. Huh. Longer than I'd have guessed…. I guess the healing tech we have is nowhere close to the one Frieza had in Namek, after all, it took Goku like half a day to heal up from a lot of wounds, which I suppose makes sense, I mean… we are a few decades away from that point.

They swarmed me after that, one of them shining a light in my eyes, another grabbing my restored arm and turning it over like he was checking a tire to see if it was rotated just right, a third hovering near the shattered wall with an expression that suggested he'd very much like to ask about it and knew better.

"Yeah, that was me, sorry," I said. "I’ll have someone fix that later, but enough about that… Can somebody talk to me about her."

I pointed at Okara's tank.

The head physician followed my finger, and gulped.

"Lady Okara," he said. "She's stable, my King. She'll make a full recovery, don’t worry."

"I know that… she’s too stubborn to die on me, but what happened to her?"

He took a breath. "Cooler came."

So I was right…

"When?"

"A little over a month ago," He wouldn't quite meet my eyes. "Word was he intended to finish what his father started…"

And Okara stood her ground…

I looked back at the tank. At the wreck of her floating in the green.

"She wouldn't let anyone else near the castle," the physician went on, quieter now. "She had the whole capital moved underground days before he arrived. Then she went out to meet him with only the Namekian, and she told him to keep his distance, and she… she fought him, my King. Alone."

"And Cooler?"

I know it was a stupid question, after all, if he had survived… I would not be here asking stupid questions, but I felt the need to ask either way.

The physician smiled. "She won," he said, eyes shining. "She killed him, my King. Blasted him clean off the planet, everyone saw the explosion. She won."

I turned it over. Okara, alone, against Cooler… who by every measure I had was somewhere in his father's neighborhood, maybe past it, I wasn’t entirely sure to be honest. I guess this answers the question whether he'd honor the alliance or bury me the second I was weak enough.

He'd made his choice, in the end… and came for my head while I slept, and my planet after. And the girl I'd met on a mountain all those years ago had stood by herself and put him on the ground… or in this case, in the sky.

"She became a Super Saiyan," I said.

The physician nodded. "Gold hair. Green eyes. Immeasurable power… The same as you, my King." A pause. "The whole planet felt it, twice, if you count the night she first…" He trailed off, then found the word he wanted, and it was one I hadn't expected. "The staff have started calling her the second."

The second. Well that’s an underwhelming name for the second Saiyan in history to achieve this transformation, and I can bet my ass she won’t like it, at all.

I looked at her floating there, wearing that stupid satisfied grin even in her sleep, and something warm and proud and slightly terrified moved through my chest all at once.

"Yeah," I said quietly. "Don’t call her that, she might kill one of you."

"My King," the physician tried, "you really should return to the—"

"I'm not getting back in the tank."

"You've only just—"

"I've been floating in a jar for months while my best friend fought a war I slept through." I peeled the last wire off my chest and dropped it in the puddle. "I'm done healing. Get me something to wear, get me something to eat… gods, I could eat a moon… and somebody find me Nail, because I want the whole story from someone who was actually there."

Salza

The tank in the center of the room was the largest and most advanced one the Cooler Force owned, and it still wasn't big or advanced enough to hold Lord Cooler in one piece.

I stood in front of the glass with my hands folded behind my back, looking at what was left of my lord, as he floated in the green fluid in … well, pieces. The machines held each section in place, suspended in its correct position relative to the rest, so that from a distance, if you squinted, and if you were an optimist, you could almost pretend it was a whole being…

Lord Cooler reduced to 81 pieces…

The medical staff said he was alive, something that surprised me, all things considered… no matter how durable his kind is, this was beyond ridiculous, but they were right, there was activity in the head… There was function in what remained of the body, as the two were being coaxed, cell by cell, back toward each other.

They also said it would take a very long time. They were less specific about how long, which is how I knew they didn't know. But at the least, it would take years… perhaps more, at least with the technology at hand.

"...How is he still alive," Neiz said, behind me. "How is that… I mean.. Salza, his HEAD, it's not even attached to—"

"He's a member of the Cold Clan," I said, though I was aware that didn’t make it any more ridiculous. "They are not like us… clearly… Cut one in half and both halves will glare at you. It's revolting, and quite frankly a biological enigma, but right now this is the only reason we have a lord at all, so I'd suggest gratitude over squeamishness."

"Right." Neiz swallowed. "Right."

Doore said nothing, he just stood against the far wall with his arms crossed and stared at the tank, which suited me. I was tired of questions about how… all of this worked. I didn’t know, hell, I am pretty sure Lord Cooler doesn’t know.

I turned away from the glass, and sighed.

"Lord Cooler went to the Saiyan homeworld to finish a war," I said. "He did not come back as the conqueror of the universe. He came back in pieces, and… frankly, we are lucky we weren’t killed as we escaped the planet." Perhaps it was the pacifistic nature of the Namekian observing the fight, but thanks to it… we had survived, and so had Lord Cooler. 

The empire our lord has tried to take over, held together on one thing— the belief that the Cold Clan was untouchable. But now… Frieza's dead. King Cold is dead. And if the word gets out that Cooler followed in their footsteps, then every pirate, every rival, every ambitious little warlord with a fleet will come. Not for the Saiyans. For us. For the throne, for the territories, for whatever they can tear off the corpse of the empire before someone else does.

As much as it pains me to admit it… we had to let this story play out on itself, and use it as a smokescreen.

"So what do we do now?" Neiz said.

"We disappear."

Trying to fight the Saiyans would be a suicide, not with those two being there to defend them, revenge wasn’t an option, and neither was letting others know… while I was certain Lord Cooler would hate the idea of pretending he was dead, our only option was hiding, and letting our Lord recover.

"We keep our heads down," I said. "As far as the empire is concerned, the Cooler Force was defeated by the Saiyans…."

"For how long?" Doore asked.

"For as long as it takes him to heal." I glanced back at the tank, at the cracked head floating with the other parts of his body. "For whoever long it takes…. It doesn't matter. Our lord is patient, he waited his whole life to inherit an empire. He can wait a little longer to get it back and kill those who opposed him." I turned back to them. "And so can we."

Neiz shifted. "And the Saiyans? The two of them? We just... let that go?"

I almost laughed, were these idiots really suggesting we fought those monsters? What hope could we have, if Lord Cooler lost? I might as well kill myself and save them the inconvenience of killing me… I am surrounded by idiots.

“I… that was a stupid question, forget it…” Neiz took a step back.

Stupid question? That was a massive understatement… I’m not sure I have a word in my vocabulary to fully describe how stupid it was.

"It was… as for the little prince we have in our ranks, keep the boy alive," I added. "Our orders are the same, and won’t change until Lord Cooler himself says so."

"...The Saiyan brat," Neiz said, faintly disgusted. "We're still raising the Saiyan brat. After what a Saiyan just did to—"

"Especially after," I said. "Do try to keep up, Neiz. If the Saiyans can produce monsters like those two, then the smartest thing to do is to own a Saiyan of our own, on our own leash, ready to fight for our Lord." I let the smile onto my face for the first time all night, because it was, at least, one good thought in a very bad week. "Lord Cooler saw that before any of us. Even now, in pieces, he's still three moves ahead."

If the little prince grew to be… loyal to our Lord, then we would have the greatest asset the empire could ask for. But we had to make sure he was loyal, and his little caregiver was not exactly fond of us, fortunately, that problem had an easy solution.