100 years later (50 years ago from Vegeta's perspective)...
In the shadows of a dim, smoke-choked club, Saiyans lay strewn across the floor—slumped over tables, collapsed against walls, drowning in drink and apathy. The air pulsed with the deep throb of bass and riotous laughter, a grotesque symphony masking the decay of a warrior race. Lights flickered erratically, casting fleeting, ghost-like reflections across bloodshot eyes and hollow stares.
Then, the illusion shattered.
A shrill, metallic alarm tore through the night like a blade. A voice, raw with desperation, crackled through loudspeakers across the streets:
"Planet Vegeta is under siege! Repeat: Planet Vegeta is under siege! All forces must deploy at once!"
A lone Saiyan—his armor half-buckled, face marked with panic—ran through the streets, gripping a loudspeaker like a weapon.
"Get up, damn it!" he bellowed, voice hoarse. "We're being wiped out while you rot in your stupor!"
He glanced at the unbothered crowd with revulsion. Some didn't even flinch. Others blinked lazily, their minds dulled by pleasure and poison.
"Lazy pigs..." he snarled. "This is our planet—our blood, our pride—BURNING!"
A few heads turned. Blank expressions slowly gave way to confusion, then to dawning horror. Planet Vegeta? Attacked?
The very notion seemed impossible—until now.
A creeping chill settled over the room as realization seeped in. The revelry died, replaced by the silence of guilt and fear. Chairs scraped. Bottles dropped. Saiyans began to rise—shaky, ashamed, their eyes haunted by what they might have already lost.
The messenger stood taller, renewed by the sight of movement.
"The King calls. We fly now or we die cowards. Move!" he barked, voice cracking like thunder.
One by one, the warriors obeyed. Reluctantly. Grimly. The sky soon rumbled with the roar of space pods tearing through the clouds—too late, perhaps, to make a difference, but driven now by desperation rather than duty.
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King Vegeta gritted his teeth as he looked out from the doorway of his palace. His youthful face, marked by the smoothness of late teenage years, was a stark contrast to the heavy burden he bore. Despite his age, his eyes reflected the weight of the entire Saiyan empire, thrust upon him after his father's untimely demise from a mysterious illness.
The capital city was surrounded by the PTO army on all sides. A formidable, though not impenetrable, energy barrier encased the city's walls, with its only vulnerabilities at the three gates, keeping the attackers at bay.
"Kappa," he addressed his general, a large, well-built Saiyan standing beside him. "Take a quarter of your men and head to the North gate. Tell Gajar to take another quarter to defend the East gate. I will take the rest and fight at the West gate."
Kappa nodded respectfully. "As you command, my king," he said before rushing off to carry out the orders.
For the last 50 years, the PTO had been steadily encroaching on the Saiyan empire. This time, King Cold's organization had gone a step further, launching an attack on the heart of the empire—Planet Vegeta itself.
King Cold had cunningly chosen to strike in the dead of night when most Saiyans were fast asleep. He had been pleasantly surprised when his massive army, hidden within a colossal spaceship made of a reflective material, managed to reach the planet undetected. Perhaps the Saiyans had never imagined in their wildest dreams that anyone would dare attack the feared Planet Vegeta.
The Planet Trade Organization's army—twenty percent Arcosian, eighty percent elite monsters drawn from the darkest corners of the galaxy—had already turned four of Planet Vegeta's five great cities into flaming graveyards. Only the capital remained, choking on the smoke of its fallen kin.
The final stand unfolded at the three massive gates of the city, where Saiyan elites hurled themselves into brutal melee with King Cold's vanguard. The battlefield was a maelstrom of shattered stone, scorched sky, and dying screams. Overhead, space pods streaked in like comets, only to be torn from the air by relentless enemy fire. Reinforcements disintegrated before their boots could touch the ground. A trickle of survivors landed—too few, too late.
Corpses blanketed the ground, many burned beyond recognition, their armor melted into flesh. The stench of death thickened the air. Blood—red, green, and black—flowed through the gutters like rainwater.
King Vegeta fought with feral intensity, but even as he destroyed wave after wave of enemies, he saw it. The inevitable. His soldiers were faltering. The Arcosians moved like wraiths, their power overwhelming. No matter how fiercely the Saiyans fought, they were being hunted, cornered, slaughtered.
"All squads fall back to the inner perimeter!" the king shouted, shielding a wounded soldier before blasting an Arcosian clean through a building. But there were too many. And his men were dying too fast.
His scouter beeped. The numbers were clear. They were losing—badly. The king's eyes scanned the battlefield.
Vegeta's heart thundered. His pride screamed for him to die fighting. Logic whispered a different truth.
He made his choice, one that would haunt him forever.
"TRUCE!" he bellowed, his cry echoing across the battlefield. "WE CALL FOR TRUCE!"
The fighting stopped.
Shock rippled through the Saiyan ranks. Fighters froze mid-motion, disbelief plastered across soot-smeared faces. Their king—their king—was surrendering?
King Cold, observing from above, allowed a thin, satisfied smile to spread across his face. This was the outcome he had engineered. He wanted Saiyans alive—not free, but shackled.
The terms were delivered swiftly, mercilessly, and without negotiation:
- All planets once ruled by the Saiyan crown would now fall under the dominion of King Cold.
-The Saiyan people would serve under the banner of the Planet Trade Organization as enforcers, scouts, and shock troops.
-King Vegeta would henceforth govern Planet Vegeta—not as a king, but as a regional subordinate in Cold's empire.
Beside the king, a warrior with palm-tree-like hair—Gajar—stood trembling, his fists clenched in fury.
"My king… we cannot serve them," he rasped.
Vegeta's gaze remained fixed on the ruins before him. "We have no choice," he said bitterly. "We are outmatched. This… is survival."
"But, my king… you haven't transformed," Gajar pleaded. "You still have power left."
Vegeta turned to him, face twisted with fury and shame. "I can't! And Cold knows! That's why he hasn't killed me. Now silence yourself!"
The quiet that followed was more crushing than any explosion. Not one among them could touch the powerful legend. There were no Super Saiyans today. Only shattered warriors standing beneath the shadow of a superior foe.
A suffocating wave of despair settled over the capital.
It was the beginning of a new, humiliating, era for the Saiyans...
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25 years later (25 years ago from Vegeta's perspective)...
King Vegeta stood on the deck of his spaceship, gazing at the rising sun of Planet Vegeta. His once dark hair had begun to grey, a testament to the passage of time since the fateful battle. King Cold had mostly withdrawn from the daily affairs of the Empire, leaving his sons, Frieza and Cooler, to manage the vast dominion. Cold had resigned himself to savoring life's pleasures in the twilight of his years.
Beneath that rising sun, the Saiyans toiled like slaves in their own world. Once-proud warriors were now little more than glorified attack dogs, dispatched to distant planets for conquest and extermination. Their homes were crumbling bunkers, their sustenance barely edible protein rations distributed with disdain. Injuries went untreated. Children were sent alone on missions before they could begin to form sentences. If they died they deserved it, and if they survived, it was only for the life of a bonded laborer.
A single word of dissent meant death—or worse, reassignment to the mining colonies on frostbitten moons. Needless to say, the glory of Saiyan heritage had been reduced to chains of slavery.
As King Vegeta watched the sun climb over the horizon, a spark of hope and determination flickered in his eyes. Beside him stood his youngest and most promising son, Vegeta. He had named the boy after himself, hoping that this child would be the one to redeem the Saiyans from their subjugation under King Cold.
His other children were spoiled and unremarkable, but Vegeta was different.
"Son, do you see the sun rising?" the king asked, his voice steady despite the weight of his words.
"Yes, father," young Prince Vegeta, fifteen and still rough around the edges, replied with a raspy voice.
"Just as that sun rises, a Super Saiyan will rise to restore our former glory."
"Who will it be, father?" Vegeta inquired, his curiosity piqued.
"He must come from my bloodline," the king said, turning to look at his son. "And I expect that he will be you."
Prince Vegeta smirked, a glimmer of determination in his eyes. "Right."
A Super Saiyan—since the time of King Vegeta's grandfather, Sabzar, the royal bloodline had awaited one.
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Back to the present...
Vegeta opened his eyes. The cold, dark expanse of space, punctuated by distant stars, was visible through the window of his pod. It had been a dream, but it felt so real.
"A Super Saiyan... I am coming for you, Frieza."
To be continued...