Dragon Ball Z: The Beast Within - CH55

[Escarot POV]

I had to start planning again.

The original plans were… gone.

I didn’t even realize how much I was banking on staying in the shadows until the spotlight burned me alive. The idea had been simple: play dumb, play quiet, grow strong, avoid the real monsters until I had a shot at actually facing them. 

But now?

Now I’m sitting on a throne I didn’t want, trying to salvage the situation.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, staring at a crude map one of the advisors had laid out for me. Borders. Alliances. Trade routes. Numbers.

I didn’t understand any of this, and I doubted King Vegeta ever did… 

As for what came next?

Fighting the Cold Clan?

No… Right now, that would be a death sentence.

Frieza, and his freakshow of family, the entire Cold Dynasty—trying to take them head-on would be suicide. That’s not drama talking or fear talking. That’s basic arithmetic. I’m strong, stronger than anyone on this planet; but that doesn't mean much when the guy you're up against is a guy that’s a hundred times stronger than you.

Everyone in that family punches way above my current weight.

So, yeah, confrontation with that was absolutely off the table. Out of the question.

That said, I couldn’t avoid them noticing me now… my ass was in the spotlight. So, if I couldn’t tackle this problem head on, I needed to adapt.

I sat back and thought.

Frieza originally had two main reasons for wiping out the Saiyans in the timeline I knew. One: Lord Beerus told him to. Two: He was terrified of the “Legendary Super Saiyan.”

And now, that the former king of the Saiyans was dead—by my hand. Publicly. Brutally. Word was going to spread like wildfire, even without any help. I didn’t need to hide it.

This would bring the attention of the Cold Clan down on my neck, which was… not ideal.

But maybe, just maybe I could use this situation to my advantage.

If I played this right…

If I controlled the narrative…

I could turn this mess into something useful.

I needed to plant a seed in the collective mind of my people. Nothing heavy-handed—just a carefully crafted whisper that would travel from ear to ear, slipping through barracks and marketplaces, threading its way through officer quarters. The message would be simple: their new king wasn't just another ruler, but a warrior who had claimed his throne through the ancient rite of combat, a legend in the flesh.

Legendary Super Saiyan material, right?

I didn’t even need to say it myself. I just had to let the seed take root and water it by existing.

The Cold Clan would inevitably catch wind of these rumors. They'd investigate—that was inevitable. But therein lay my advantage. Picture it: they arrive expecting some world-shattering demigod from ancient prophecy, only to discover... just me. Impressive for a Saiyan? Certainly. But nowhere near the cosmic threat they'd braced themselves for. Nothing that could possibly challenge their iron grip on the galaxy.

They’d dismiss it. Label our legends nonsense.

Frieza's the worst of them all. His ego can't handle being wrong. If I can manipulate him into dismissing the legend as nonsense, his pride will do the rest—he'll file away the "Super Saiyan threat" as just another primitive fairytale and direct his attention elsewhere.

I need to walk a delicate line—powerful enough to catch their eye, but underwhelming enough to be dismissed.

I could work with that.

A power level of thirty thousand ought to strike that perfect balance.

It’d buy me time. And time is the only currency that matters right now.

That wasn’t my only problem though…

Prince Vegeta—or I guess, formerly Prince Vegeta now—was still alive. That was a problem. A small, extremely angry future problem currently wrapped in a blanket somewhere deep in the palace nursery.

What the hell was I supposed to do about him?

I mean, I was the reason he was fatherless now. Not that I felt bad about that. But I also wasn’t keen on dealing with a future teenage rage-gremlin with daddy issues and a vendetta against me. I’ve seen the canon. I know how that turns out, I know just how passionate he is about his hate.

That said, killing a baby’s not really on my bucket list. And honestly, if I were going to do it, I would've done it already. I had the opportunity. I passed on it. Which means now I have to deal with the consequences.

Again.

Yay me.

Besides, it's not like Vegeta Jr. was the one who wrong me. His dad did. His mom backed it. Baby Vegeta was just a crying bystander with a terrible hairline.

Exile him? Same problem.

What kind of bastard exiles a baby? King Vegeta, that’s who.

You don’t need to be some moral philosopher to realize dumping an infant on a barren rock is a scumbag move.

And besides... exile now just pushes the problem into the future. I send him off, he survives, because he will survive, and he comes back stronger. Angrier. Maybe wearing some black cloak and a scouter with a red visor, calling himself "Vegeta the Vengeful" or some dramatic shit like that. Then I’ve got a new enemy I basically gift-wrapped and sent out with a “come back and kill me later” sticker.

So… yeah. No thanks.

I’ll keep him here.

Raise him myself? Hell no. I’m not about to start bottle-feeding MC Window’s Peak. But maybe keep him close. Close enough to keep an eye on him. Close enough to make sure he doesn’t grow into the same prick his father was.

And who knows… maybe he’ll grow attached?

Weirder things have happened.

I mean, I didn’t plan on caring about Broly either. That happened. So who’s to say I won’t one day look at Vegeta Jr. and not want to boot him into orbit?

...Doubt it. But it’s possible.

More importantly, raising him here keeps me in control of the narrative. I would lose control of what could happen.

But if I keep him here? I shape who he becomes. I can show him strength without cruelty. That it’s possible to be Saiyan without being a complete jackass.

...Again, doubtful. But worth a shot.

Maybe, by the time he’s old enough to understand what happened, he’ll see the truth. That his father was a coward and a tyrant who got what was coming to him. That I didn’t take the throne—I was forced into it by circumstance, bad timing, and a very smug cat god.

Now… what about the former Queen?

She was still alive, in one of the healing pods, but alive.

Her I had no problem exiling or killing, I still wasn’t sure.

Oh well, one step at a time.

———————————————————————————————————————————————

[Cooler POV]

King Vegeta had been dethroned. It took them long enough to dispose of that prideful rat.

Rather violently, if the reports were accurate. Half of his skull was obliterated, while the spine was left intact just long enough for the gesture of his demise to register across the throne room before the final twitch of death silenced him.

And now, the throne belonged to no other than Escarot, himself. What a delightful development.

I had to say, this Saiyan kept on impressing me, and that was a hard task on itself.

The feed projection flickered across the dark of my viewing chamber, courtesy of a stealth drone that had been circling the palace. No audio, but the image was clear: Vegeta on his knees, Escarot holding him by the scalp, the precise moment the shot was fired. The expression on Escarot’s face was calm, despite his anger. Not triumphant. Just… resolved.

Clean. Surgical. Controlled.

How unusual for a Saiyan.

Most of them scream before they strike. Posture before they bleed. Escarot, by contrast, made his statement in the silence after the smoke.

A rare thing.

Unfortunately, the feed abruptly terminated there. Something—or someone—had disabled my surveillance equipment with concerning precision.

I stood from my chair and crossed to the panel, swiping through the data feed. Combat reports, power level estimates, social shifts on the planet’s surface.

The Saiyans had already begun referring to him as “The True King.” How quickly they rewrite their songs. Loyalty, in the end, is a shallow concept. Power writes history, and Escarot had written his in blood.

I found myself smiling.

Of course, this complicated things.

Claiming Escarot now would appear as though I were usurping what Father had already promised to Frieza—a political misstep I couldn't afford.

I, naturally, disagreed with Frieza getting anything. But father sided with Frieza in most if not all matters, and I chose not to press the matter. There are hills worth dying on. This was not one of them.

I could till make my plays, however, I had to be more subtle in my approach. If I made contact with Escarot directly, it may look... deliberate. That I positioned him to undermine my brother’s claim. However, if I handle this properly—if I move with care and timing—this event can serve my interests quite nicely. The boy has, quite unknowingly, created another opportunity.

There’s more than meets the eye to Escarot, this all but confirms it.

“Salza,” I said aloud.

“My lord?” he said with a shallow bow.

“Set course for Planet Vegeta.”

His eyebrows twitched upward a fraction—rare for him. “My lord?”

I allowed myself a small smile. “I’m intrigued.”

He nodded. “Of course.”

I turned back toward the feed, letting it play again from the beginning.

The Saiyan Escarot.

I must know more.

I had to confirm if my suspicions were right.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

[Paragus POV.]

I was having a perfectly average morning.

I’d just finished yelling at a low-rank soldier for breathing too loudly near me. Breakfast was almost ready. And I was this close to finishing the list of things to do for the day—

Then, like a thunderbolt from hell itself, the news hit.

"Lord Paragus!" a low class scout gasped, skidding into my camp with both boots and dignity barely intact. “You have to come quickly! It’s your son!”

I barked. “What happened?”

The scout paused. “Um… he’s the King now.”

There was a full three seconds of silence.

“…What?”

“King Escarot,” the scout said again, trying to smile like it was good news. “He killed Vegeta in single combat. In the throne room. In front of witnesses. It was all very violent!”

I blinked. Twice.

“King…?”

“Yes, sir.”

“My son?”

“Yes, sir.”

“My son?”

“Yes, sir.”

I put both hands on my hips and tilted my head to the sky. “If the next words out of your mouth are anything other than ‘just kidding,’ I am going to kill you.”

“….”