Paragus walked into the empty dining hall, surrounded by a handful of guards. His stern eyes shifted from left to right, acknowledging the empty hall. Before the Saiyan commander could ask anything, the noise of boots tapping against the ground reached him from a hall on his right. Step by step, a tall, bare-chested Saiyan with spiky black hair walked out and approached the table from the right, staring longingly down without acknowledging his father.
"Broly, some guards told me you were with Chayote and her guests. I won't lie, I was excited to hear that. Where are they right now?" Paragus wondered.
"I don't know…" Broly answered without moving his eyes from the table and just staring longingly at a blank point in space. "That other Saiyan, Kakarot. He wants to take Chayote away from me. I want to kill him."
A Saiyan soldier standing near Paragus gulped. The nonchalant manner at which Broly stated something like that never failed to creep the soldiers out. It was normal for Saiyans to wish to fight and even assert their dominance over their fellow Saiyans but the reserved way in which Broly spoke, referencing bloody murder with the same tone he'd talk about the sky with, didn't seem normal even to the warmongering Saiyans. It felt absolutely psycho.
"Now, now, Broly. Kakarot is a Saiyan name, in case you don't know. He's one of us and those of us that aren't loyal to the Vegeta clan are welcome here," Paragus spread his arms out, disciplining his son. "If this Kakarot is Chayote's friend, he'll want what's best for her. And what is better for her than to be the queen of people she's spent her whole life wanting to return to? If he is not her friend, well… That'd be just unfortunate. Do you understand, Broly?"
Broly stared at the table quietly. His face was unmoving and his eyes frozen and dull, like those of a corpse.
"Do you understand?" Paragus repeated himself, just to let his problem child know he awaited a certain confirmation.
"Yes, father…" Broly submitted with a husky whimper.
"Excellent! Oh… Those blasted soldiers of ours. I expected them to at the very least take our guests here to meet us for dinner. This is an important meeting, perhaps the most important in the history of Planet Vegeta and they're proving themselves lacking in their duties…" Paragus sighed.
"I can quarter them," Broly looked at his father with calm eyes, looking almost hopeful that his father would nod in approval of his excellent plan for disciplining his troops.
"They're just undisciplined and late. That's no reason to raise your hand against your own people, Broly," Paragus waggled his finger to teach his son some manners. "I need you to be better than your basic impulses, my boy. You are to be the King of Saiyans one day. Even if I expect Chayote to do more ruling out of you two, you must still inspire confidence and loyalty in your men and admiration in your people."
"I thought I told you to not attribute me to the counted chicks yet," Chayote's voice echoed from the hall up front as Goku and Chayote emerged from the dimly lit corridor and entered the dining hall. "I'm not queen yet."
"Man… I'm stuffed but I'm not sure of what…" Goku patted his rumbling stomach with his hand. "With food like that, no wonder Vegeta's having his people live on Earth."
Something loomed over Paragus as the regent stood there with a solemn expression. Whether it was the mention of the Vegeta name or the acknowledgment of a whole different group of Saiyans existing and threatening the legitimacy of his rule, something made Paragus seethe deep down. Broly was too preoccupied with trying to stare a hole through the table to notice his father's frustrations. Given the guy's short fuse, Chayote imagined that she'd have had to calm him down for the third time that evening. How did this unstable guy not blow up the planet yet?
"I believe in time we will have to deal with King Vegeta IV. Though that is a question for the king and queen, not a regent," Paragus sighed while approaching the end of the table and dragging a tall chair that must've weighed as much as a space pod aside to sit down. Before settling down, the regent gestured for the arrived guests to do the same. "The other guests seem to be late. I won't hold it against them. It is the fault of my men for not doing their job right and bringing them here for dinner. Still, we can't wait for them forever. They can join us when they come."
"Alright!" Goku clapped his hands and began rubbing them together, looking excited to eat something that was properly prepared and cooked for him as opposed to just bare ingredients and chopped limbs of space lizards and alien life from across the galaxy. "Can't wait to wash that mushy stuff down with something mouth-watering!"
The Saiyans settled down in their seats and saw the lightly armored chefs leave the halls and emerge to serve the food. Goku looked dumbfounded by the tiny bowl they served him with a creamy liquid that stuck to his spoon almost like honey when the Saiyan stuffed it down. The oaf tried mixing it like soup, though realized that the goop was thick as cookie dough. With moderate difficulty, Goku pulled out the spoon and licked the ooze off of it.
"What is this stuff?" Goku winced his eye while scratching his head and looking at the spoon. He didn't seem to hate it, though his expression relayed grand confusion about his true thoughts about the weirdo soup.
"Molten Kosrochi eggs," Paragus picked up a blowtorch-like gadget and blasted concentrated heat parallel to his bowl, which softened his dough enough to mix it like a thick soup. While he worked on his soup, the regent looked excited to explain the dish to the baffled foreigner. "The Kosrochi are massive space-faring insects. They lay their eggs inside the craters of asteroids and comets. The hatched caterpillars thrive off of the minerals inside them before maturing and taking off on their own. That way, they carry the eggs all throughout the universe and spread their kind far and wide. During the early stages of their development, the eggs are delectable and creamy in substance, well… Relatively so. You still have to heat them up to soften them up enough to eat."
"Problem is, the Kosrochi lay their eggs inside blazing asteroids so what they consider "heat" is incredibly relative to them," Chayote sighed, hovering her hands over the bowl and fuming with a softened Hot-Red aura that slowly made the contents of her bowl creamier.
Broly grabbed the bowl with his left hand, then scooped the thick goop out with his right and just stuffed it all in his mouth like a bear thrashing a honeycomb for some inner sweetness. Goku snickered at the sight and repeated after his brutish peer, finding this method of eating the Kosrochi eggs more preferable to the proper way.
"So, Chayote, while we wait for the second course, I'd like to know if you've considered my request," Paragus looked at the female Saiyan seated at the opposite side of the table. "Your people, the Saiyans, need you. Now more than ever. As the Legendary Super Saiyan, the right to rule is rightfully yours."
"Sorry," Chayote closed her eyes and crossed her arms. "I've long since given up on ever joining up with the Saiyans or any remnants of Frieza's empire. Planet Earth is my home now and I live to protect its people, also, something you may not have been aware of–my son."
"Your son!?" Paragus exclaimed, kicking himself back at first, then leaning over the table in shock. "That's incredible! Who is the father? More importantly… Is he anything like you?"
"A son…?" Broly muttered. Yet again, just like before, his nonchalant and squinted in boredom eyes spread wide open as his black pupils began moving all over alongside his twitching eyes. Veins began ravaging the body of the Legendary Super Saiyan as he gnashed his teeth with pure, seething hatred leaking out of his eyes.
"Yeah…" Chayote nodded. "He's just a little brat right now. Younger than training age, so I've no clue if he's got those cells everyone's into these days. I'm not exactly holding my breath here. It's clear they're not hereditary. I'm not related to you or that Yamoshi guy and yet I've got them. You don't have them, yet Broly does. He may very well be just a healthy little Saiyan boy."
"What are the Earthling customs of betrothal?" Paragus turned to Son Goku with an inquisitive glare. "Is Earth one of the cultures with lifelong monogamous matrimonial bondage?"
"Betrayal's considered pretty bad on Earth! I'd say it's a sign of a pretty rotten guy, though this question's a bit out of the blue," Goku nodded to himself. Paragus' eye twitched as he struggled against the instinct to label Son Goku an utter imbecile for not even comprehending the nature of his question right, though, for the sake of his relationship with Chayote, he held it together.
"You didn't answer my question, Chayote. Are you spoken for?" Paragus repeated, shifting his alert and worried eyes to his son's side as Broly's muscles had been swelling up and the growling maniac had begun slowly inflating in size while his black hair rustled and spiked upward bit by bit.
"No," Chayote sighed, unable to help it but to return to the thoughts of Trunks. "The boy's father is a Saiyan named Trunks, but he's gone now. I'm not sure where, but he's been gone for long enough for me to not expect him to ever be back."
"That's good!" Paragus clapped his hands a few times with an ecstatic grin. "You can raise your young prince here amongst his people and prepare him to rule. Given how the Legendary Super Saiyans show up once in a thousand years and we've got two seated at this table, it's quite evident that your boy will deservedly inherit the throne as there won't be another Legendary Super Saiyan in a few millennia now."
"Son…" Broly's body deflated at once and the pulsing veins retreated in their place without threatening to rip through the skin obstructing their way. "Chayote's son…" he muttered.
"You shouldn't be so overjoyed about it, Paragus. The boy's father is from the Vegeta clan you loathe so much," Chayote raised an eyebrow, testing Paragus' reaction with a delightful tease. By now she was almost certain that she was ready to send the man to hell if he insists on putting her on the throne. "Being smarter than most of his bloodline, Vegeta didn't name his son after himself and his planet. His father is Trunks, and you saw his wife at the wedding you crashed."
"W-Wait… That boy!?" Paragus jumped up, startled while quivering in shock. "But that boy had purple hair, not to mention… I'm going to give you a chance to explain yourself, Chayote, I believe you deserve that much."
"Obviously that twerp isn't the father," Chayote shrugged, peeved she had to point out the distinction again. "It's another version of the boy that came back to our time from the future. It's a long story but… I guess he just went back to his own time after he was done in the past…"
"I have… So many questions… But… Most of all, I'm a bit relieved to find out that Planet Earth's primitive culture hasn't somehow ruined everything for us. That's actually incredibly fortunate for us, Chayote. Can't you see? Now you simply must become queen. Your son is the actual heir to the throne. Not even Vegeta's lackeys can deny it. You could avoid a civil war by bringing that boy up. The other brat's mother is an Earthling whereas your son has the blood of the Vegeta clan and a Legendary Super Saiyan–your legitimacy as the queen would be simply undisputed, no matter which angle one looks at it from," Paragus dug into the dinosaur steaks that the chef presented on a massive platter for each guest.
"It's real rich, hearing you talk about Trunks' age, you snake," a mocking yet low-pitched and shrewd tone filled the hall as Gohan walked out from the hall with Piccolo's half-lit scowl giving a death-inducing glare in Paragus' direction. "How about you tell us how old your son actually is before Chayote signs up for marriage, you two-faced piece of garbage."
"That's some… Very colorful language coming from a guest of the Saiyan royal court…" Paragus scratched his head in confusion after acknowledging the belated arrival of the two guests. "I don't even believe we've been acquainted yet, Namekian."
"There's little use in introducing myself to someone who's about to get gone if he doesn't explain himself," Piccolo hissed before returning to his stern sulking in the middle of the hallway while Gohan approached the table with a justifiably strict look.
"We've spoken to some of the Shamoians and they claim that Broly-san is just 10 years old! We'd like to hear the truth about what actually is going on here," Gohan pointed his finger at Broly. The unhinged giant just looked up at the teen with a blank look and a slight jar to his mouth, as if his own age was news to him.
"If you are to make accusations or implications like the one being applied here, surely you have better proof than this…" Paragus wiped his mouth with a napkin before pushing the chair aside with his rear and standing up to face his accusers that interrupted his peaceful dinner instead of joining him in partaking in it. "The Shamoians on Planet Vegeta are all in the earliest stages of their development. They're akin to children with the wildest of imaginations. Not to mention the fact that their intellect is severely limited already. They're flower-folk, good only for their natural ability to revive nature around them. Any semblance of technology more advanced than the wheel just flies over their heads. How am I supposed to defend myself against fairytales?"
"That raises a good point," Piccolo emerged from the shadows, joining Gohan's side as he stared Paragus down. "Shamoians live for well over a hundred years, but they undergo a metamorphosis at a bit over 30. Despite seemingly adopting the entire Shamoian population from their home planet, there doesn't seem to be a single Shamoian that's metamorphosed. In fact, the younglings confirmed that most Shamoians they know disappear not too long after the metamorphosis. Almost like someone's trying to hide the fact of someone's true age by eliminating servants that know too much by using their metamorphosis as a measuring scale."
"Chayote…" Paragus turned to the female Saiyan, who just calmly sat with her arms crossed as if waiting for this conflict to pass so that she could return to the nostalgic food from her childhood. "I apologize for this rudeness, but your guests have cast the first stone. No reasonable host would stand there and take this unmeasured and baseless assault of heinous accusations."
A slick sound distracted everyone in the heating dining hall as the images of Krillin and Yamcha flickered into view. Yamcha had a couple of fingers pressed to his forehead while Krillin was touching Yamcha's shoulder and going along for the Instantaneous Transmission ride. This sudden teleportation seemed to catch Paragus off-guard as he stumbled backward a few steps while his troops aimed their weapons at the suddenly arrived guests.
"I don't think that's what really happened, Paragus!" Yamcha pointed his index finger at the spiky-haired regent before realizing that everyone was staring at him with confused expressions.
"He wasn't telling you about how Vegeta tried to kill him and his son, was he?" Krillin's face shriveled up in disappointment.
"Nope," Goku shook his head.
"Our cool entrance makes no sense whatsoever, given the context, does it?" Krillin deflated.
"No, but if you've got something to say, spill it," Piccolo growled with an angry look aimed at the two goofballs that were demeaning their reputation before the accused Saiyans. "This shifty traitor of his people wants more proof of his treachery."
"Well… Then you're in luck!" Krillin jumped up, having caught up to what's been going on properly and feeling ready to take the prosecution over from Piccolo and Gohan. "Because we've discovered a bunch of shifty stuff in the archives. Like, did you know that the Planet Vegeta archives have full records of the story that King Vegeta III supposedly tried to bury?"
"But, of course, it does," Paragus shrugged innocently. "I've restored it as a vital part of our history as my first executive decision as regent."
"And you got so excited about it you spilled a bucket of lies on top!" Yamcha pointed his finger at the Saiyan. "Like how King Vegeta tried to kill you and your son, when in fact, it was you who picked your son up and fled Planet Vegeta with him. King Vegeta III never tried to kill your son or feared that he'd overshadow his son. He recognized your son's potential and sent him to a faraway, uncolonized world because of his incredible battle power."
"Oh, so now you presume to be in any state to appropriate my culture and explain to me how it works, Earthling?" Paragus clenched his fists with the first sign of loss of cool during this entire sham court that Chayote's friends have been putting the regent through. "Of course King Vegeta III wanted Broly dead. That original article is just his way of glossing over his mistakes, it's full of lies! Even if it was true, which it is most certainly not, when a king sends a child to a distant world, it's to get them as far from their domain as possible so that they wouldn't pose a threat and no patrol in a hundred years would land on that planet to check up on them. He lied about exiling Broly, he's a heinous old snake even in his faked version of history!"
"I'm not sure what's going on here," Goku admitted while standing up and taking a few steps away from the table. "But if everyone here thinks you're rotten, Paragus, I'm going to knock you flat."
"So, it's treason then?" Paragus sighed.
"K-K… K-K-K… Kakarot!" Broly bellowed, standing up from the other end of the table and stumbling back. The lively emerald blast of aura emanating from his body crumbled the stone chair into pebbles before grinding it to dust while the Saiyan boiled with pure hatred. "You want to take Chayote away from me! Now you want to hurt my father!? I'll kill you! I'll kill you, Kakarot!"
"Jeez, what's this guy's obsession with me?" Goku scratched his head. "There are at least five other people here…"
"I'm afraid that the punishment for treason is death. It's a rare occasion that I am in full agreement with my more hot-headed son," Paragus reached under his cloak and retrieved some sort of gadget before pressing the button on it. A crackling charge emanated from the crown that Broly wore over his forehead that resonated through his entire body and forced the swelling giant to fall to one knee and cry out in agony as a head-splitting headache drove him into further madness. Broly's voice sounded almost a little pitiful at that moment before gaining an unnatural pitch to it and becoming outright fiendish. "Execute these traitors immediately, Broly."
The troops scurried out of the hall as if they were running for their lives. Seeing them flee in absolute panic like that gave Chayote a bad feeling, even if Broly gave off the impression of a limp weakling earlier. The unnatural growls and yells, the booming aura emanating from her peer made Chayote stand up and take her side by Son Goku, waiting for what would eventually transpire with the seething giant with a speck of worry seeded in her gut.
Broly twitched and shivered as if his body was thrashed by the inner pulses and twinges of swelling muscle. Sweat poured down every pore of his body and glistened over his stone-tight pecks and abs. In a flash, a radiant golden aura surrounded the berserk Saiyan, while his spiky long hair gained a brighter, brownish tinge to it.
"Kakarot!" Broly hissed with proverbial venom spewing from his mouth in his tone. The Saiyan's eyes turned teal, though his hair remained stuck somewhere in between his base form and the Super Saiyan gold. With the aura growing stronger and more intense, shining like a faraway star from all the way beyond the Planet Vegeta horizon, Broly stood with spiky hair of a darker purple shade. Some sick and twisted variation of the Wrathful Form, as it occurred to Chayote.
"No way, his power's multiplying tens of times every second!" Goku's mouth stretched out all across his face. "I've never felt anything like this!"
The air was becoming thicker and almost choking to draw into the lungs. Broly's expression calmed down somewhat while his hair flared up in wild spikes to the sides, maintaining their mystical color and shade while the calmed down Saiyan struck a wide-open pose, almost inviting the violence that the guests from Earth had brought to his planet.
"Time to die, Kakarot…" Broly muttered with a restrained voice, still bleeding hate for the Saiyan Broly labeled as his nemesis for the imaginary crimes against his kingdom.