"Queen? Planet Vegeta?" Chayote scratched her head as this strange, scarred Saiyan seemed to spout complete nonsense. The problem was that he had tremendous manpower and the technology to roam the stars to back his rubbish up.
"But of course, have you forgotten the legend of the original Super Saiyan?" the mysterious new arrival asked with a confident yet also calm look that just made Chayote more baffled the longer she looked at him. It was one thing to hear a maniac spouting nonsense, it was a whole different thing to see them talking about it with a level head, suggesting that it was Chayote, who was lagging behind.
"Yamoshi, the Legendary Super Saiyan?" Piccolo spoke up from behind Chayote. The baffled Saiyan turned around to look Piccolo in the eyes. Now, with her own friends catching on, it felt like Chayote was the only one still behind the curve.
"Ah, it makes sense that a Namekian survivor would know of the legend. Yamoshi's bravery has been recorded in your Book of Legends, has it not?" the caped Saiyan nodded at Piccolo respectfully. "It seems that we're going nowhere here, though. Would you join us on our ship and agree to travel back to Planet Vegeta? I will answer any questions you have on our way there."
"Whoa, listen here, buster!" Yamcha stepped out of the line and got up in the Saiyan's face. "This is my wedding you're crashing with your arrival so nobody's going anywhere until the ceremony is done and I can get married!"
"I see. You are of no interest to us, Earthling. You and your Earthling wife can stay behind for all we care. We are here to retrieve our queen and place her on the throne of the revived Saiyan people, not to bother your wedding," the scarred Saiyan shrugged and dismissed Yamcha which made the baseball ace furious yet he couldn't quite lash out at the guy because he hadn't made any hostile moves yet so provoking a conflict would've endangered the civilian guests.
"Fine," Chayote shrugged. Truth be told, she was glad to have an excuse to slip away from this ceremony. This asphyxiating Earthling ritual proved to be both boring and tremendously awkward at the same time because Yamcha was the one tying the knot and vexing social interactions during this event would have been the death of her. "It doesn't seem like you'll back off otherwise. I'm going to sort this out with you guys. That I'm not this queen of whatever you guys take me for."
"Ch-Chayote!" Yamcha muttered. "If you really want to go, I can just use Instant Transmission to get you to Planet Vegeta after the ceremony. You don't have to go with them."
"She might…" Piccolo grumped out. "These guys raised a fine ruckus and disturbed your wedding. It's not like they can just sit tight and wait for the ceremony to be complete. No one's going to be able to sit still with an armed Saiyan military platoon on standby at the wedding. They need to be dealt with."
"I think we should go with, just in case," Goku did a few light warm-up exercises. These armed soldiers didn't feel like they would've posed a threat to anyone except lower-class Saiyan warriors, so Chayote wondered if Goku thought this little of her skill or if he actually just wanted an excuse to get away from the wedding too.
"I agree. We shouldn't let Chayote go alone," Piccolo nodded.
"Very well," the scarred Saiyan nodded. "I have no objections to a Saiyan asking to be returned to Planet Vegeta, and I'd be honored to host an esteemed Namekian guest to witness the ascension of new Saiyan royalty."
"That being said," Gohan stepped up. "Given how you're talking about taking the Saiyan throne, don't you think you should include Vegeta-san in this conversation?"
"K-King Vegeta!?" the scarred Saiyan stumbled back. "You mean he's alive!?" Panic flashed through the Saiyan's face, but then it faded away into obscurity just as quickly as it came up. Slowly, it began allowing an unfamiliar emotion entirely to substitute it. A sort of malevolent glee that was tough to wrap one's head around or properly define.
"Yes, though if you're talking about the old King Vegeta, he's been dead for a long time," Chayote replied. "It seems that we're not the only ones that need to catch up to whatever's going on with the Saiyans."
"I don't like this one bit," Gohan turned to Piccolo and Goku. "This smells like a Saiyan civil war. I feel like I need to go with you guys if we need to defuse this conflict."
An armored Saiyan soldier, who had been staring at some sort of tech gizmo for a little while now, stood up and strut up to his scarred commander, leaning up to him. The soldier whispered something to his commander before returning to the lined-up formation and taking the knee again. Chayote noticed waggling tails behind every bowing soldier.
"These soldiers are all Saiyans?" Chayote gasped.
"Indeed, my queen. This is the new Saiyan race that you'll be ruling. My trusty soldier here informed me that this planet has plenty of natives that are irradiated with minor traces of Blutz Waves. It wouldn't happen to host even more Saiyans, would it?" the Saiyan commander looked at the Dragon Team, hoping that one of them would give him the explanation.
"The answers you seek will require a long talk," Piccolo summed it up. "Short version–King Vegeta's son, the new King Vegeta, has taken the Saiyan throne after Frieza's demise. Because of the extended conflict with the Frieza clan, the Saiyan population has dwindled, and this forced the king to abandon Planet Vegeta and bring the surviving Saiyans here for repopulation on Planet Earth, where the Saiyans have been integrating themselves into the Earthling society."
"This… We were not aware of this…" the scarred Saiyan began frantically scratching his beard as he paced back and forth a brief distance. "This complicates things but… It might change nothing at the end of the day. Shall we leave for Planet Vegeta then? We'll begin our negotiations en route."
"Lead the way," Chayote gestured toward the open ship.
Goku, Piccolo, and Gohan stepped out and took their place by Chayote's side. Krillin gave Artificial Human No. 18 a wary look. The blonde sighed and waved her hand, allowing her husband to leave with the rest if he wanted to. Yamcha clenched his fists and began struggling against something before turning around to his seething wife.
"I'm going too," Videl ran up in front of Gohan, giving him a brave look as if asking for his permission as her martial arts teacher.
"Please don't," Gohan shook his head.
"B-But I can handle myself!" Videl objected with a whine. "What's the point of all that training if you're just going to make me stay behind all the time?"
"It's not that you can't handle someone like these soldiers if needed, you could easily defeat them by the dozens. The problem is that your dad can't find out you've snuck off and got into a dangerous situation because of you followed me," Gohan insisted. "Stay behind, please. Yamcha-san is quite popular, so this place is teeming with media. If you slip away, your father will certainly find out."
"Ruby-chan, sorry, I've got to go too…" Yamcha squeaked out, knowing full well the cataclysm that this proclamation might bring.
"YOU… WHAT!?" the redhead bellowed while clenching her fists by her sides and sinking her twisted expression in shade.
"Thing is, we've no clue what these alien guys are all about. Even if Goku and Piccolo are really strong and they can probably beat up anyone in the universe, we might need a quick trip home and I'm the only one that can take us back in an instant if need be…" Yamcha tried reasoning his way out of this but the bride was already slipping her gloves off and winding her arms back for a beating.
"Are you okay, man?" Krillin looked at Yamcha with a worried expression. "Those shiners don't look too good. You really should've raised your Ki and not let that lady pummel you this badly."
"Are you kidding, she'd have broken her arms if I did that…" Yamcha waved it off, still clutching his swollen jaw and whining like a kid who ate too much candy and ended up with a toothache. "Besides, no amount of Ki can protect you from the emotional hurt… I can't believe Ruby-chan called off the wedding…"
"It's kind of your fault," Piccolo hissed with his arms crossed. "No one asked you to go and there's no reason why we'd need to escape with Instant Transmission. No one aboard this ship can provide any of us with a real challenge. Videl may be the weakest and the least experienced member of the Dragon Team, but I agree with Gohan's assessment that even she could easily flatten everybody here."
"Come on, Piccolo," Yamcha shrugged it off. "By now, you should have been through this enough times to know that things aren't as they seem to us. For better or worse, I'm almost certain this will end up as a terrifying, life-threatening calamity."
"Hmph…" Piccolo crossed his arms and closed his eyes, choosing not to humor that unfounded assumption.
The door to the deck opened up with the caped Saiyan entering with a company of a dozen armored soldiers. This time they had their helmets off and their battle-worn and rough faces could've been seen. To Chayote, someone who has managed a private military establishment, one particular detail struck her as odd–these soldiers didn't have a unifying standard for them. Some of them had been as young as in their late teens, and some of them had been old enough to show silver in their hair. This suggested to Chayote that this commander didn't put together this fighting force with forethought and a particular ambition in mind, the force just came together by itself.
"Greetings, queen and her compatriots," the scarred Saiyan bowed lightly with an arm pressed to his chest with a standard Frieza Army military bow. "As I've said, I'd rather have us go through our negotiations on our way to Planet Vegeta. Since you seem to be friends with our queen, we'd be more than glad to host you for a feast once the queen agrees to take the throne of Planet Vegeta. This Earthling appears to have said something about being capable of spontaneous teleportation, if that is indeed the case, we're glad knowing that you can return home safely on your own and leave us to our business."
"Huh? So Chayote's some sort of Saiyan queen? I don't seem to get it…" Goku scratched his head. "Didn't Vegeta go on and on about being the King of Saiyans and all that? Does that mean that he and Chayote are related or… Nah, Vegeta's married to Bulma, isn't he? Man… I just don't understand anything at all…"
"Allow me to help you understand, in that case, Saiyan from Planet Earth. My name is Paragus. I've met queen Chayote before, but she doesn't appear to remember me. Back then, she was looking for a breathing apparatus that would let her stay on Planet Sando. I provided her with the necessary unrefined crystals to buy the gear she needed," Paragus explained.
"Wait a second, that's right!" Chayote gasped and pointed at the scarred Saiyan. "You're that guy that drilled into my spine and sucked the juices out!"
Hearing this, the rest of the Dragon Team got startled, which in terms startled the onboard party of soldiers that all aimed their Ki channeling rifles at the onboard party of guests. Paragus stepped in between the two jumpy parties with his arms extended to the sides. "Please, stand down!" he asked. "Things aren't as dire as queen Chayote makes them out to be."
"Yeah, it's not like he tried to kill me or anything. It hurt like hell though…" Chayote blew her cheeks out, recalling the hassle she went through as the Saiyan scientist took his samples of various tissues in Chayote's body and ran the bloodwork on her using basic Earthling technology.
"That's right, it was a mutual agreement," Paragus confirmed. "Queen Chayote agreed to allow me to get the samples I needed from her body and run my tests, while I paid her handsomely for the inconvenience."
"If you knew about Chayote when she was training in space and didn't rat her out, that meant you weren't aligned with either Turles' Crew or the Frieza Army," Piccolo put it together and gave the Saiyan a stern look. "Where exactly did your allegiances lay in that case?"
"I intend on explaining, Namekian," Paragus extended his hand out to pacify Piccolo. "As I've explained to Chayote when I pitched this deal to her, I was on the run at the time from both the Frieza Army and the Saiyans. I was an exile, grievously injured by King Vegeta and his goons, and left for dead alongside my son. It's because of Broly that I needed Chayote's help with the samples and experiments. I needed to patch him back up to shape."
"Oh, that's right, you did that coup thing, right? I completely forgot about you!" Chayote pointed out.
"Coup?" Gohan exclaimed. "That sounds serious."
"This seems like as good of a time as any to explain everything to you," Paragus sat down on some stacked steel boxes while his security party surrounded him from all sides. "A Saiyan's worth and standing are determined based on their battle power as a baby. Those with strong battle powers become elites, the strongest of them are fit to rule the entire Saiyan race. However, haven't you ever wondered why the Vegeta clan has been in charge of Saiyans for so long? Three, or rather four now, generations of undisputed rule. This has never before happened in the entirety of Saiyan history…"
"It does seem odd…" Goku pointed out.
"That's just how it is. The Vegeta clan is the most powerful Saiyan clan of all…" Chayote shrugged. "Saiyan way of determining rank is asinine, to begin with. Something you'd learn quickly on Planet Earth is that one's battle power can change drastically since one's birth. One can be born low-class but grow to surpass even the Saiyan royalty in time."
"You're wrong, my queen," Paragus shook his head. "The Vegeta clan is an incredibly powerful bloodline of elite Saiyan warriors, yes. But what if I told you there have been many cases of births of Saiyans far more powerful than the Vegeta clan successor to the throne but each successive King Vegeta since King Vegeta I executed each baby born with a higher battle power than their strongest successor? Moreover, King Vegeta III even concealed his offspring that were born as low-class warriors by sending them off to space immediately after birth prior to registration of their birth."
"What!? You mean Vegeta's got a bunch of brothers and sisters he's got no clue about!?" Goku shrieked out in amazement. "Wait… Don't tell me, all of these guys are Vegetas…"
"No," Paragus shook his head. "These soldiers are all Saiyans, yes, but they are Saiyan scouts shot out into space and abandoned by the Saiyan kingdom and the Frieza Army for their low battle power. They were left to their own devices and, if they made something out of themselves, they would've been welcome to return home. Using a unique method of tracing Saiyans on a planet judging by the Blutz Wave radiation signatures, I've tracked most of them and gathered them together. It tells me a lot that King Vegeta IV would just abandon his people like that and choose to bring his surviving people to Earth instead when he had viable means of restoring the Saiyan race by unifying his abandoned people."
"You assume Vegeta doesn't care about these guys as Saiyans?" Piccolo scoffed. "To him, battle power is everything, that's true. But he's taken the surviving Saiyan race under his wing and he's grown a lot since his ascension to the throne. Even if it comes off bitterly for me to admit it, he's been growing into a fine king and he's been doing his best to make his people survive and prosper, even if he's been going about it in his own way."
"That may be so, but that is irrelevant!" Paragus raised his voice, standing up with a violent swipe of his hand in dismissal of Piccolo's sentiment. "The Saiyan way of life is that the most powerful Saiyan must rule. That is where the legend of Yamoshi, the original Super Saiyan, comes in. Long ago, possibly even thousands of years in the past, a legendary Super Saiyan with the name of Yamoshi tried taking over the Saiyan race and tried correcting its course. He didn't like how violent and devious Saiyans had become. They had abandoned all traces of honor and grew stale in terms of their development and power because of it. However, Yamoshi was betrayed and killed by his own people. Still, his legend had been recorded in the Namekian Book of Legends because of his valor and noble intentions."
"Your son, Broly, he was one of the Saiyans born stronger than Vegeta-san, right?" Gohan put it together.
"That is correct, youngling," Paragus nodded. "Broly was born with a battle power far surpassing that which Vegeta IV demonstrated as an adult. In return for it, the King ordered me and my son to be obliterated and the records purged of the fact that we've ever lived. It was then that I've come to learn of all the past instances when King Vegeta "deleted" other exceptional Saiyan births from existence. Not just the few that surpassed Vegeta, some that merely came close too."
"Piccolo's right," Goku scratched the back of his head with a perplexed look on his face. "Vegeta's dad may have been a nasty piece of work, but Vegeta ain't like that. He can be pretty mean, but he isn't killing babies…"
"Besides, then there's another problem–at some point, Captain Ginyu murdered and replaced King Vegeta to keep the Saiyan population in line with Frieza's will," Chayote pointed out. "We've got no clue if all the baby murder was truly King Vegeta III's will or if it was all Frieza."
"Right!" Goku snapped his finger. "It would be just like Frieza to kill little babies and he was pretty scared of Saiyans spiraling out of his control."
"This is irrelevant," Paragus dismissed it all with a swipe of his hand again. "For crimes against the Saiyan people, King Vegeta is unfit to rule. Besides, he is no longer the strongest Saiyan. Chayote, the legacy of the Legendary Super Saiyan is within you, and so it is in the veins of my son–Broly. You two are the ones that must rule Planet Vegeta together as King and Queen of the new Saiyan people. I've told you I'd find you and pay you back for the kindness that you've shown by helping me bring Broly back to health with your blood and tissue samples. This is it, Chayote, take your place on the throne and become the Queen of Saiyans alongside my son. Rule as one of the strongest Saiyans in existence."
All of this came so suddenly and just felt too overwhelming for Chayote. The Saiyan just cradled her head in between her hands and spaced out. Gohan approached the Saiyan and pressed his hand on her shoulder to comfort her while Paragus sighed and turned around.
"Don't feel rushed to make this decision. Please, let us take you to Planet Vegeta and see the life we've brought to the planet by yourself. The new life you've built to settle with your exile from Planet Vegeta and its society you rightfully belong in must feel like an inseparable part of you now and I understand this. But please understand me as well, I merely wish to give you everything you've ever wanted–to make you a vital part of the Saiyan society, the mother of this new Saiyan society we're building, in fact. One of its strongest soldiers and fundamental members of the new Planet Vegeta. All of this for the kindness you've shown me and my son back in the day, also, because of who you are and what you deserve as your birthright!" Paragus clenched his fist, sounding more convinced by his pitch than Chayote might ever be. "Please consider my offer carefully, that is all I ask of you, queen Chayote."