Chapter 12 Prelude : Ghosts of the Throne
In the Lab deep beneath the bowels of the Saiyan Palace, Year 777 Post Tuffle Extinction and slightly after the exile of Brolly.
The room was sterile, save for the charged energy that pulsed between two minds that had long stopped pretending not to understand each other. Dr. Nion tapped a series of commands into the console, the glowing blue data stream reflecting off her dark blue eyes.
"You're forgetting a variable," she said without looking up. "The emotional volatility of Saiyan hybrids may accelerate or disrupt the genetic triggers for transformation."
King Vegeta III—still regal even in his private mourning of his exiled son and wife—leaned against the metallic bulkhead, arms crossed. "You mistake volatility for weakness. It's rage that drives us to power, not logic."
She turned, one brow arched, lips tilting into something between a smirk and a taunting smile. "And yet, it was your logic that brought you to me, wasn't it? Or did you come here to flex for the microscope?"
His scowl was immediate, but unconvincing to the scientist. She had long since stopped being afraid of his temper. "I came here to elevate our people. And you…" his voice dropped, …you're the only mind sharp enough on this planet to carve that path."
The air between them stilled, as they drowned into each other's eyes, fighting for dominance, the tension in the small space between them coiling like a live wire until it snapped—not in fury, but in the sudden kiss he pressed to her mouth. It was less affection than a declaration, less surrender than a skirmish.
When they parted, their hands still holding the other, she whispered against his lips, "You're still wrong about the volatility."
"And you're still irresistible when you're condescending." the King growled.
7 Years prior to year 777; a year prior to the death of King Vegeta the II.
The chamber was lit only by the flicker of blue fire light reflecting off cold obsidian walls. Alone, beneath the grand ancestral portraits of the Vegetan dynasty, King Vegeta III sat motionless, eyes fixed on a single image—the portrait of Queen Eshallot, her delicate beauty immortalized in oil and brushstroke. She was smiling sweetly, her purple eyes sparkling and her long lavender hair elegantly piled atop her head with a bejeweled crown adorning the elaborate half up half down hair style. Tarble, their youngest son, was held delicately in her arms, as he must have been no more than a few months old, and at her right their eldest son Vegeta the IV stood proudly near his sitting mother, he must have been no more than 6 years old. Of the three in the painting, only one remained, the other two were both lost to time... and politics.
They weren't dead—not truly. But the rest of the galaxy could never know that. King Vegeta II, in one final act of tyranny before his death, had branded them unfit—too kind and far too weak-hearted; liabilities to their royal elite standard as they stood aligned with the Cold family's ruthless dominion. Official records claimed they died in an off-world accident. In truth, they had been spirited away, hidden so deeply not even Frieza's spies could unearth them, nor could the King himself.
Vegeta the III had grieved in silence, his rage scorched into the marrow of his bones. But in that silent rage, a single truth had come to him: his legacy was the only thing that would outlive him. Bloodline alone would not be enough—it would need to be sharpened, engineered, and perfected, so that no one else would have to suffer as he did.
That was when Dr. Nion entered his life.
Years Earlier – The Laboratories Beneath the Citadel of the palace
Cold, clinical light gleamed off steel tables and tanks pulsing with biometric fluid. Dr. Nion didn't look up as he entered. She never bowed, never simpered—her intellect was her crown, and in her lab, she was sovereign.
"You're late," she said dryly, hands deep in a control console that monitored embryonic Saiyan gene sequences.
"I was exiling my conscience," Vegeta the III replied, voice sharp. "And considering whether or not I still need it."
Nion glanced up at that, one brow arching with amusement. "Leave it outside. It'll only slow us down."
That was the beginning.
Together, they defied biology, tampered with divine order, and began the controversial project to re-engineer the Saiyan potential. Where his strength was brutal and commanding, hers was cold precision. They were opposites—volatile, calculating—but somewhere between whispered arguments and silent hours of shared purpose, they found something more during their time together.
Private Quarters of the King– Years Later
"You act like your bloodline's a kingdom, Vegeta," Nion teased, sprawled across the bed, pale blue light casting long shadows across her bare pale skin.
"It is a kingdom," he muttered, fastening the last clasp of his armor. "And I've no heir who can wield it with both strength and sense, that boy will be the death of me!"
She watched him quietly for a moment. "You mean your son, Crown Prince Vegeta the III, The one you keep grooming into a weapon, thrust into the viper's pit of the Cold family so that he can learn everything about war and planet eradication? The boy isn't even treated as a person."
Vegeta's jaw clenched. "He must be more than me. Stronger. Sharper. I won't see him kneel to the Cold empire—or worse, become a casualty like the Queen and my youngest son."
They rarely spoke of his lost family, the loss was one of the only things that truely haunted the proud King.
Changing the subject to avoid the emotional depth of opening old wounds, Dr. Nion added, "Or continue to be weary of uncontrollable strength such as that of the exiled boy, Broly." Another painful point, sending away the closest possible Saiyan to perhaps fulfilling the legendary prophecy.
Broly was a prodigy whose uncontrollable power had frightened even King Vegeta. Paragus, his father, had made the fatal mistake of trying to leverage his son for status—and paid for his political endeavors with the exile of both son and father. But Broly was part of their calculations, their greatest "what if." A natural-born outlier. A proof of concept. He was also their ace in the hole should things ever go sideways with the Cold family.
And yet, they had seen in hybrids—those born of Saiyan and off-worlder blood—something even more stable. More promising.
"You forget," Nion whispered now, rising to approach him, "that legacy is not only forged in blood. Sometimes it's forged... in our choices."
Their eyes locked—intellect and instinct sparring in silence—before she pulled him into her arms and into the comfort of the King's bed.
Back to Present – Post-Abdication Reflections
The abdicated King Vegeta the III stood on the observatory platform overlooking the training chambers now run by his son, the now crowned King Vegeta the IV. He personally no longer ruled by crown, but in every strategic whisper, in every contingency plan etched into the council room's databanks, and he was witnessing how his legacy lived on.
Dr. Nion joined him, her white lab coat flowing like a standard ethereal cape. "Still brooding your grace?"
"I'm considering the future," he said. "And the ghost of a woman and child I once failed to protect."
Nion leaned beside him. "And what about this one woman you let invade your personal space? The one who stuck around because she believed in the monstrous things you wanted to be born of your legacy, and the leader you wanted to become."
He looked at her then, soft despite the steel in his frame. "I never thanked you. For being one of the last people on this planet that I could lose… and never feel whole again."
She smirked, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "Then try not to lose me, you brute, you still have a lot of plotting that needs to be done."
They stood in silence after that—king and scientist, tyrant and lover—two conspirators in the creation of a new kind of Saiyan.
Present Day. Journey to Space Station Alpha.
As Bra dons her ceremonial robes, a quiet moment finds the abdicated King and grandfather Vegeta III watching his granddaughter from the shadows of the observatory above the observation deck where the rest of the royal family was gathered upon their palace sized royal galactic space cruiser. He does not approach or make himself known. Instead, he murmurs to the woman standing beside him—now older, but no less sharp, and still strikingly beautiful, her short chin length dark blue hair now streaked with white highlights due to age.
"She's walking into the snake pit to charm a serpent."
Dr. Nion doesn't reply immediately. Her gaze is fixed on Bra as well, and there's a softness there in her gaze, almost maternal. Almost.
"She was born of evolution," Nion finally says. "But she survived because she was allowed to choose her own variables and because so much was invested in her personal development."
He grunts, as if offended by her poeticism, but he doesn't disagree.
Mixing the human species DNA with their Saiyan DNA had been the most fruitful thing they had yet discovered, and in strategically setting up "coincidental" encounters between his son Vegeta the III and Bulma, and creating the opportunity for them to connect created the perfect recipe for their relationship to bloom. Of course prior to this they had first tested the experiment with the lower class, effectively erasing the memories of every collected earthling human as well as their captor, Kakarot, the Saiyan that had been sent to planet earth to gather the most prized DNA examples of the human race. He was the son of Bardock, a lower class scientist and fighter, but one that was familiar with Dr. Nion.
As Dr. Nion followed the progression of the differences of the children Kakarot had with his earthling wife that had been genetically modified to produce a tail like Saiyans, their first son was Gohan. Promising potential, and with the right combination of training and trauma, he could become a super Saiyan that would not loose control of his actions. Then they also had Goten. Unbeknownst to every family that had been matched with an off world mate, Dr. Nion kept very detailed records on each of their offspring for the purpose of creating an army of evolved Saiyans to one day over throw the Cold empire. But not until the Royal family was the first to attain the legendary status.
This was the reason why Prince Trunks was so often trained by King Vegeta to be beaten within an inch of his life, then healed immediately after the beating to measure the increase of his power.
The reflections of both the abdicated King and his scientist lover were done quietly as Princess Bra's voice rang true, echoing in the large chamber. "Then let this political conclave begin."