Escarot

I came back to myself on my knees.

A massive headache throbbed behind my eyes painfully, leaving me disoriented. Why was I kneeling? One second I was mid-swing, pouring everything into an attack, and the next I was face-down in the dirt, hands digging into the ground as I gasped for air, sweating.

Whis stood over me, his staff planted firmly in the earth, watching me with an unreadable expression.

"...What happened?" I asked, hoping for an answer.

Neither of them answered right away. A few meters off, Beerus stood with his arms crossed. His tail was uncharacteristically still as he stared at me. He looked intrigued, but it wasn't his usual twisted amusement—it was something different, what exactly, I wasn’t sure.

I forced my legs under me and pushed myself up, having to freeze for a second until the shaking stopped. Every nerve in my body screamed, but it didn’t feel like the normal exhaustion of a brutal sparring session, this felt different on a fundamental level… How exactly? I wasn’t sure just yet.

"Did you knock me out?" I asked, looking toward Beerus. "Everything hurts.”

"No," Whis shook his head.

He crouched down to my eye level, which for him… was a rare, unsettling gesture of genuine attention.

"Escarot. There’s no other way to say this, so I’ll go out and say it. A moment ago, you were about to kill yourself."

I… what?

"Oh, don't be dramatic, Whis, you'll frighten the boy." Beerus uncrossed his arms, as the familiar cat-like boredom that was characteristic of him bleed back into his voice and posture. "I wasn't going to kill him. He got carried away and threw a tantrum… So what? Mortals act out here and there, gods put them in their place. It’s not a big deal, besides it's not the first time I've had mortals go feral on me before without destroying them." He sniffed, turning his head. "Frankly, I was starting to enjoy it."

"That is not what I meant, my lord."

Beerus blinked, shifting to scratch the back of his ear as he yawned. "...It isn't?"

"No." Whis stood up, turning his back to me to face the God of Destruction. "I did not intervene because you were going to kill him. That thought never entered my mind. You could have ended him with a flick of your finger, and I wouldn’t have lifted a hand to stop it." He gestured back toward me with his staff. "I stepped in because he was a danger to himself."

"I’m… incredibly confused," I interrupted, looking between the two of them. "Because I feel like crap, but I can’t remember the last few moments of our fight, and this conversation isn't exactly clearing things up for me."

"In a moment," Whis replied, turning his gaze back to me. "First, I want you to tell me what you remember about the fight."

"Well…," I started, racking my brain. "I rushed Lord Beerus. He flicked me across the field. I got back up, charged him again, but he kept dodging. I kept missing—"

"Keep going."

"—and I kept—"

I remembered the frustration. I remembered wanting to land just one hit so badly that my chest hurt. I remembered the blinding heat of my own anger… and then, a void. A total blackout.

"...Huh."

"Just as I imagined," Whis replied.

"No, hang on." I pressed the heel of my palm against my forehead, trying to force the memory loose. "There's a piece missing. How much time did I lose?"

"About ten seconds."

Ten seconds.

For the first time, I actually looked around at my surroundings. Where the training ground used to be, there was now a massive, shallow crater. The center of the ground wasn't cracked, it was a solid sheet of blackened, melted glass. Jagged scorch lines fanned right from the spot where I was standing.

"I did that?"

"You did," Whis replied, tapping me in the head with his staff. "And you would have done considerably more if I hadn’t stopped you. Shall I tell you what I saw? I think you need to hear it, Escarot, because if we do not address this soon enough, it will happen again, and many will die."

"...Yeah." That was an ominous threat if I ever heard one.

"In short… Your body was producing energy faster than it could spend it."

Was that even possible?

"That... doesn't make sense," I muttered, looking down at my trembling hand, which if I looked close enough, I could see a faint, erratic green static that moved around my arm, stinging like a thousand needles. "At least, I think it doesn’t...."

"Normally, it doesn’t…" Whis said, as he took a slow step forward, the base of his staff tapping lightly against the vitrified floor. Clink. Clink. "But what I witnessed in those ten seconds changed a few perspectives I had on the matter. You became a reservoir that was rapidly being flooded from a source with seemingly no end."

Beerus let out a sharp, amused huff. "A walking bomb. Now that would’ve been fun."

"Perhaps, but then who would’ve cooked your favorite dish, my lord?" Whis replied, before turning his attention back to me. "Escarot, when you lost your temper, your baseline power didn't just spike—it began to multiply exponentially with every heartbeat. Your cells were mutating under the stress of your own anger. I watched your muscles swell, your eyes cloud over into a blind, white void, and your ki... your ki turned into something… entirely different."

No, no, no… no no no no no, that… this can’t be happening to me. I can’t be that, I… no, NO!

"It was heavy, in a way," Whis explained as he raised a hand, creating a small, glowing holographic projection of a humanoid figure between us. The figure’s energy pathways began to glow a violent, unnatural green, expanding until the lines began to rupture. "Normally, when someone powers up, they push their energy outward as what we call, aura. It's a controlled release. But your power was rising so quickly that your natural output channels couldn't handle the volume. The energy was backing up inside your own flesh, and due to your body not being fully developed yet, cooking you from the inside out."

He looked me dead in the eye.

"If I had not struck when I did, the sheer pressure of your own power would have vaporized your vital organs. You would have detonated, taking this entire solar system with you."

I… was that… monster, that psychopath, I was the Legendary Super Saiyan, not Broly. I wasn't just someone reincarnated as a Saiyan, trying to survive this dangerous world, no; I was a ticking chronological anomaly destined for madness, and if the universe was lucky, a catastrophic end.

"I believe this is what your people call… The Legendary Super Saiyan," Whis added, watching my face pale as he said that. "A fascinating, albeit tragic, biological anomaly. A warrior born with a power that cannot be contained by flesh."

"I… I almost killed everyone," I whispered, my voice sounding incredibly small as I looked down at the erratic green static still bouncing on my skin. "I almost blew up a solar system because I got mad?"

"Oh, don't undersell yourself, kid," Beerus chimed in, floating over with his ankles crossed, looking down at me with a genuinely wicked grin, he didn’t see the problem with this. "If Whis hadn't poked you, that exponential spike would've kept climbing. In a decade or two you might give me a real workout trying to contain you, without destroying you that is. It's a pity I have to wait that long. I haven't seen a mortal go completely feral like that since..." He paused, his golden eyes narrowing slightly as he glanced at Whis. "...Well, it's been a very long time."

"Lord Beerus, please do not encourage the boy's self-destructive tendencies," Whis scolded gently, though his focus remained locked on me as the green holographic figure between us shattered into glittering particles. "Escarot."

I forced my eyes up to meet him.

"I can see what you’re thinking… I know that right now, you are viewing this as a curse," Whis said. "And if you leave it untamed, you will fulfill that exact destiny. You will lose your mind to the bloodlust, your body will become a vessel of pure destruction, and Lord Beerus will be forced to erase you from existence. That is the path of least resistance."

He leaned in slightly, the tip of his staff glowing.

"But there is another path. Your energy channels are narrow, unaccustomed to the violent volume of your true power. We must widen them. We must forge your physical prowess through a discipline so absolute that your mind retains its sovereignty, even when your power attempts to drown it."

Paragus and Tomat.

Meanwhile, several light-years away in a completely different quadrant of the cosmos, a very standard, totally oblivious Saiyan squad was moving.

Paragus adjusted the collar of his standard-issue armor, frowning at the digital display of their scout ship. Next to him, his mate, Tomat, was aggressively scraping the dried grease off a piece of beast jerky with a combat knife. They had been on a tracking mission for a while now. Eating nothing but low-tier rations, all while suffering a multitude of mechanical failures, with zero reception from the home base.

"The tracking sensor is still looping," Paragus grunted, slamming his fist against the console. "The PTO tech support line has been on hold for months. If I have to listen to that orchestral looping anthem one more time, I’m going to kill myself."

Tomat didn't look up from her jerky. "More food for me."

"That’s helpful!" Paragus snapped, crossing his arms and looking out the viewport. "I need to have the performance review ready… The PTO logistics officers are notoriously unforgiving about late reports. If we don't turn in this quadrant mapping by next cycle, they’ll reassign us to a garbage disposal station."

"Maybe," Tomat snorted, finally biting off a piece of the jerky. "But… that’s your problem as the commanding officer of our squad, isn’t it?"

Paragus sighed, rubbing his temples. "I suppose you're right… I just hate being out of the loop. I tried pinging the main Frieza Force planetary network this morning, and the automated system told me the entire organization had been 'permanently liquidated due to structural rearrangement.' What does that even mean? Corporate restructuring? Are they merging with the Cooler Corps?"

"Probably a tax write-off," Tomat said wisely, waving her knife in the air. "You know how the upper bastards of the Cold Clan are."

"Taxes? Now that’s funny," Paragus rolled his eyes, his mate had a particular sense of humor he found… endearing. "At least, I managed to send a short-range message to Escarot’s team… before the long-range array was completely fried."

Tomat raised an eyebrow. "What did you say?"

"Send another ship," Paragus said. "And to bring more food, I am tired of the jerky."

Tomat smiled, leaning back in her chair. "Sucks for you, I love this shit."

“That’s because YOU eat anything,” Paragus replied.

“Well, I don’t see you complaining when it suits you,” Tomat snorted, and Paragus blushed slightly.