Escarot

I suppose this is what I am to endure if I want to make formal alliances, I guess it beats dealing with my little problem, though I do have to tackle that sooner than later. How exactly? I had no idea, but I had time to find a way.

“Escarot, how do you like the party?” King Furry asked, as he approached me. “Is the food to your liking?”

I looked at the human King and smiled, giving him a nod. “I do, and so do my people.” 

Gine, Bardock and Raditz had been stuffing their faces for the last forty eight minutes without stopping, they would’ve started sooner, but they had started the party adamant I needed security, so I had to force them to enjoy the party, because if anyone had to suffer through the formalities of diplomacy, it had to be me, it was one of my… duties.

“You weren’t kidding when you said your people eat a lot…” King Furry chucked, watching tiny Raditz pile another mountain of roasted meat onto his plate. “I’m just glad I believed you, and had our chefs prepared enough food to feed an entire army.”

“I’m glad you did,” I replied, taking a small sip from my glass of soda, one of the many commodities I missed from Earth, even if this wasn’t my earth. “Did you call your expert to check our tech?”

“Of course,” King Furry said, nodding as he took a sip from his cup. “He should be arriving any time now, but it’s hard to tell with him, he’s a bit… eccentric, if you know what I mean.”

I wonder if the expert is who I think it is. It would certainly streamline my other reason for being on Earth, the Brief Family.

"Ah, speaking of the devil," King Furry said, his ears perking up as he looked toward the grand entrance. "He has finally arrived, Escarot, allow me to introduce Earth's foremost mind in engineering."

I turned my head as a small group navigated through the crowd. Leading the pack was a man with a thick mustache, round spectacles, and an incredibly relaxed demeanor, completely unbothered by the heavy security around him. A small black cat was curled comfortably right around his neck, wearing a bowtie. Beside him was a cheerful blonde woman in a stunning evening gown, holding the hand of a very small girl.

"Doctor Brief," King Furry greeted warmly, stepping forward. "Thank you for making the journey from West City."

"Oh, it's no trouble at all, Your Majesty," Dr. Brief said, casually adjusting his glasses. His eyes immediately darted past the King and locked onto me, or more specifically my tail. "And I take it this is our distinguished guest from beyond the atmosphere? Fascinating..."

Your King is an anthropomorphic dog… me having a tail seems tame compared to that.

"Indeed," King Furry introduced. "Doctor, this is Escarot, King of the Saiyans."

"A pleasure, Doctor," I said, offering a polite, firm nod. "Your reputation precedes you. My time on this planet has been short, but in it I have seen the marvels of the technology your company manufactures, the likes of which I have never seen anywhere else."

Before Dr. Brief could reply to that, a sudden, sharp tug on the edge of my battle cape drew my attention downward.

I looked down.

Standing right at my boots was a tiny girl with a bright tuft of turquoise hair, wearing an incredibly poofy, sparkling pink princess dress. Bulma. She was barely three years old, her tiny round face tilted upward as she stared at me with wide, glittering blue eyes. There wasn't a single shred of fear in her expression, only absolute, starstruck awe.

"Bulma, sweetie, don't pull on the King's cape," The blonde woman whose name I never learned, but I knew was her mom, whispered with an airy laugh, though she didn't look particularly worried.

Bulma ignored her mother entirely, she took a step closer, her little hands clasping together in front of her sparkly dress as she looked up at my face, then at the elegant royal crest on my chest, and finally at my Saiyan armor.

"Are you really a king?" she asked, her tiny voice completely enchanted.

"I am," I replied, a bit amused, lowering my posture slightly to meet her at her level.

"Like in the movies!" Bulma suddenly gasped, her face flushing a deep shade of pink as she pointed a stubby, determined little finger directly at my nose. "You're my prince! It's official! When I grow up, I'm gonna live in your castle and be your space princess!"

I coughed, entirely caught off guard, nearly choking on my soda. Wait, what?

"My word," Dr. Brief let out a good-natured chuckle, completely unbothered as he puffed a cloud of purple smoke from his pipe. "I suppose I did say no man from this world was good enough for my little girls."

That’s all you have to say to that?!

"Uh. Is that so?" I coughed, rubbing the back of my neck, what can I say… being proposed to by Bulma as a toddler in a very sparkling pink dress was not on my bingo card, but considering the situation I suppose I might as well play along, she is a kid after all. "Well, little princess, you'll have to work hard and build some very impressive starships if you want to do that, I live veryyyyyy far away from here."

"I will!" Bulma declared proudly, as she instantly puffed out her chest, crossed her tiny arms, stomping her equally sparkly pink shoe against the marble floor. "I'll build the biggest, most beautiful, fastest spaceship in the whole universe, and then you'll have to marry me!"

"Bulma, dear, don't badger the alien overlord," Her mom chimed in cheerfully, finally looking over from a tray of passing hors d'oeuvres, as King Furry called them. "Though, honey, wouldn't an out-of-world wedding be lovely? We could theme it around stars! Oh, I wonder if they have space catering."

King Furry looked back and forth between my sweating face and the fiercely determined three-year-old, his whiskers twitching as he desperately tried to suppress a laugh as I closed my eyes for a brief second, chuckling under my breath.

"Well," I sighed, opening my eyes and looking up at the eccentric scientist, deciding it was probably best to steer this conversation back to the actual reason we were all standing in this place. "As much as I'd love to finalize the wedding details with your family, Doctor, I believe we have some technology that requires your specific expertise."

Dr. Brief’s eyes instantly lit up behind his round spectacles, the lazy cloud of purple smoke around his head suddenly shifting as he perked up. 

"Ah, yes! The extraterrestrial machinery!" Dr. Brief said, his relaxed demeanor instantly replacing itself with a sharp, almost childlike eagerness. He rubbed his hands together, completely abandoning his daughter's marital ambitions. "The King's invitation mentioned some rather anomalous mechanics. I must admit, I've been pacing since I heard the news, thinking about it. What exactly are we looking at? Metallurgy? Energy compression? Foreign alloys?"

"I’m no scientist, so I wouldn’t be able to tell," I replied, offering him a smile. "But, what I can tell you is that we brought down a few standard-issue components from our ships, along with some of our localized scanning equipment. It's currently being held in the private vault downstairs, there’s also my ship if you want to give it a look, this is all but a sample to what we can bring."

"Fascinating, truly fascinating," Dr. Brief muttered, already taking a step forward as if he intended to bypass the Royal Guard and find the vault himself. "Lead the way, Your Majesty! Let us see what the rest of the galaxy has been hiding from us."

"Right this way, Doctor," King Furry chuckled.

As we began to walk away toward the secure elevators, I felt a sharp, familiar tug on my cape once more. I glanced down. Bulma was marching right alongside my boots, her tiny jaw set in absolute defiance as she held onto the fabric like a little anchor.

"I'm coming too," she declared, her glittering blue eyes staring up at me. "I have to see the spaceships if I'm gonna build a bigger one."

I couldn't help but smile down at the future tech genius who would one day reshape the entire universe. "I don’t see why not."

"Oh, there you are honey, I was starting to think you wouldn’t leave the car!" Dr. Brief’s wife, whose name I really had to learn, called out, waving ahead.

I looked up to see a teenage girl with blonde hair slicked back into a high ponytail navigating her way through the crowd, wearing a formal dress, while actively shoving a frosted strawberry cupcake into her mouth.

"Ah, Tights, I thought you said you wanted to stay in the car for a little bit longer!" Dr. Brief beamed, waving at her. "Escarot, this is my eldest daughter, Tights."

"Nice to meet you," Tights mumbled around a mouthful of cake, swallowing, before quickly dabbing her mouth with a napkin she had hidden in her hand, completely unfazed by the fact that she was standing in front of an alien. "So… you're actually an alien king?”

“I am.”

“Can I interview you for my school paper?"

I blinked. "An interview?"

"Yeah! My creative writing professor is always telling us to find unique perspectives, and I'm pretty sure 'Interplanetary Monarch from an Unknown Culture' beats interviewing the campus dean again," Tights said, pulling a crumpled notebook and a pen out of a hidden pocket in her dress. "Don't worry, it won't take long. Just a few questions about your planet, your government, and maybe your thoughts on Earth so far, just normal stuff. What do you say?"

Before I could even formulate a diplomatic response to the teenage reporter, Bulma let out a sharp, aggressive gasp from down by my boots. She tugged on my cape with a fiercely territorial yank, glaring up at her older sister.

"No! Leave him alone, Tights!" Bulma ordered, her tiny face contorted into pure defiance. "He's my prince! You can't interview him!"

Tights looked down at her three-year-old sister, then up at my thoroughly bewildered face, as a slow, mischievous smirk crawled onto the teenager's face.

"Oh, I see," Tights snickered, taking a slow bite of her cupcake as she looked at me with immense pity. "Maybe I should interview the King and future Queen, then?"

The effect on Bulma was instantaneous, as her tiny jaw dropped, and her wide blue eyes flashed with absolute, glittering triumph, and as the word "Queen" resonated in her brain, her territorial scowl vanished, instantly replaced by a massive, smug grin as she looked up at her older sister, thoroughly delighted by the sudden upgrade in status.

"Yeah!" Bulma cheered, clapping her hands together, the violently sparkling pink dress rustling loudly. "You have to interview us!"

What the fuck was happening? I couldn't hold it back anymore, so I just let out a genuine chuckle, shaking my head at the sheer, unfiltered absurdity of this interaction so far.

"Alright, alright," I said, raising a hand in surrender to the two sisters. "You can have your interview, Tights. And you," I looked down at the tiny, sparkly menace who was still gripping my cape, "can tell her all about your future space kingdom."

Bulma beamed, her chest puffing out even further as she shot her older sister a triumphant glare.

"However," I continued, smoothly pivoting back to their father. "First, I need to show your father what we brought. That is, after all, the main reason we are all here."

"Oh, yes, the technology! Of course!" Dr. Brief clapped his hands, his eyes sparkling with a familiar, manic curiosity, the one you see in most great minds. "Lead on, Your Majesty! The future awaits!"

King Furry gestured toward a set of heavily guarded elevator doors at the far end of the hall. "Right this way. We've cleared sub-level four entirely for this demonstration."

Next in DBZ! The Red Ribbon Army strikes! Will Escarot and his friends be able to... who the fuck am I kidding?