Quick footsteps echoed down the long white corridor.
Chronica, small, dark-skinned, fists clenched, walked with purpose. Her face was determined.
*He's a demon, this man is a demon! Because of him, Azmina is turning into Aionia.*
She reached the door and slammed it open.
Inside stood a cosmic machine. A computer beside it. Some kind of contraption.
She crossed to the keyboard. Her fingers flew across symbols. She hit enter.
The contraption split open. Six small spheres rose, spinning, arranging themselves at the corners of an oval of light.
Chronica faced it
"I'll do something about it."
She stepped inside.
—
In the deep space.
The pod tore through the void.
Inside, Paragus sat against the welded door, knees folded high in the cramped space, one leg wedged between Goku's. He was on the seat across from her, Broly balanced on his lap. The Queen was crammed at his left, shoulder against his thigh.
Half an hour since the supernova. The light behind them was already fading.
"Navigation's dead," Paragus said, eyes on the porthole. "With some luck, we hit a planet on our trajectory."
"If this piece of junk doesn't shatter first," said the Queen.
Paragus glanced sideways at her, then her eyes drifted forward, to Goku, to the small bundle standing on his lap with his hands steadying her. Her little girl. Broly.
"You look tough, little one," Goku said. "Almost as tough as Rori."
Tiny hands patted his face. "Mamama."
"Yeah. Rori's my daughter."
Paragus's mouth twisted.
*That male saved us? That wimp? No, he was just there. Those soldiers were already half-dead.*
Her Saiyan pride wouldn't let it land.
She looked at the Queen.
"How did the other Saiyans get out? Why didn't the Colds kill them, or you two? How did any of us escape?"
The Queen huffed a short laugh through her nose.
"The Colds. King Cold. Cooler. Frieza. All dead."
Paragus's eyebrows lifted. "Dead? You're speculating, Your Majesty. Even if they were still on the planet, the supernova wouldn't have killed them so easily."
"I don't speculate, Paragus. I watched them crawl like the lizards they are. Beg for mercy."
Paragus stared. Silent.
The Queen balled her fist. Looking at it.
"They crawled. They cried. We gave them nothing. They're dancing with the dead now."
"When my daughter was born, she was an elite. The strongest Saiyan. I had so much hope for her, she was the one who'd break their grip on us. I'd made peace with the idea that I wouldn't live to see that day."
Her eyes lifted.
"But hear me. The Saiyans are free of Frieza."
Paragus's mouth hung open.
"The Princess? She did it? She defeated them? H- how is she that strong?"
"No, Paragus. It wasn't Princess Vegeta."
"Then who? Which of my Saiyan sisters did it?" Paragus leaned forward.
The Queen raised a hand. Long finger pointed straight ahead.
Paragus's eyes followed.
To the man on the seat. Playing with the baby.
Her eyes blew wide. Then narrowed. She turned back to the Queen.
"Him?! What kind of joke is this, Your Majesty?! You said the Saiyans freed themselves! I was hoping it was our own kin who broke the chains."
A faint smile pulled at the Queen's mouth.
"And I meant it. A Saiyan defeated them."
Paragus's eyes flicked between them.
"Your Majesty, wait, wha- I don't understand. This male isn't-"
Then she saw it.
A small ball of fur, half-tucked between his back and the seat.
"It can't be…"
She lunged. Knees first, then chest, Broly squashed against her breast as she grabbed Goku's shoulder with one hand and the fur with the other. Pulled.
Thick. Warm. Pulsing in her palm.
Alive. Not a decoration.
Her eyes traced the shaft to its base.
"It… it can't be. That's impossible…"
"Take your time," Goku said, smirking. "It's a lot to take in."
She sat back on her heels, Broly still pressed between them, the tail still in her grip, and stared at his face. Disbelief.
"You're a Saiyan?"
—
In one of the three massive ships carrying the Saiyans toward a new home, Nappa and the others argued over which direction to take. Voices rose from every corner, each warrior naming planets they knew, worlds that might serve as shelter for what remained of their people.
At the back of the room, Princess Vegeta stayed silent.
Her thoughts were far from the debate. They lingered on Goku. On Eve. On the legend of the Super Saiyan.
Then she looked around.
Eve was gone.
Without a word, Vegeta turned and left the room, letting the others keep arguing. After a few minutes of searching, she reached the escape pod chamber.
She heard movement inside.
The doors slid open.
There, beside one of the pods, Eve stood at a control terminal, fingers moving across the console.
The door hissed shut behind Vegeta.
"Where are you going?" she asked, her voice flat and casual.
Eve twitched, then looked back over her shoulder. She let out a small sigh and turned fully toward her, one hand resting on her hip.
"I have to go back home."
"Home?" Vegeta crossed her arms. "You're a Saiyan. Your home is with your people. Or is your home with that man?"
"Yes," Eve said. "we have to go back."
"Tch."
Vegeta looked away.
"What's wrong?" Eve asked.
Vegeta's jaw tightened.
"…I hate this."
Eve blinked.
"I was the strongest," Vegeta said. "And then two people appeared from nowhere, and both of them were stronger than me."
Her arms dropped to her sides. Her fists clenched.
"I could do nothing. I'm the Princess of all Saiyans. I was supposed to do something."
Eve watched her quietly.
Then she smiled.
She stepped closer, crouched to Vegeta's height, and rested a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't worry," she said softly. "A few years from now, you'll be so strong you'll put all of us to shame. The next time Goku and I see you, you'll be someone else entirely."
Vegeta looked up sharply, startled.
"How?" she asked. "What makes you say that?"
Eve stood, climbed into the pod, and started working the controls.
"A hunch," she said with a smirk. Then she looked at Vegeta for one last second. "See you soon, big sis."
The pod door hissed shut.
Vegeta stepped forward.
"What? Big- what do you mean?!"
Through the small window, Eve only waved.
A second later, the pod detached and shot away from the ship, vanishing into space.
Vegeta stood there in silence, staring after it, those strange words still echoing in her head.
"Princess Vegeta!"
Nappa came rushing into the room.
"I've been looking for you. You need to decide which planet we head for."
Vegeta kept staring at the empty dark for one moment longer.
"…I'm coming."
—
Back at the pod with Goku and the others.
Time passed.
Goku was on the seat, Broly upright on his palm, her tiny fingers patting at his chin and cheeks.
Paragus sat on the floor across from him, knees folded, back against the curve of the wall. Her eyes were down. Her arms were crossed. Her tail lay still beside her thigh.
She hadn't spoken since.
Every few minutes her gaze flicked up. Settled on him. The hair. The frame. The tail curled at his hip.
Then her eyes dropped again.
The Queen, on Goku's left, watching the both of them.
She broke the silence.
"By the way, Goku. Who are your parents? Where were you sent?"
Paragus's head moved a fraction. Listening.
"I don't know," Goku said. "I remember an old man finding me. He raised me."
A beat.
"And your pod serial number?" Paragus asked, voice flat. "With that we could check the registry of births and-"
She stopped.
"…ah."
There was no registry.
There was no Vegeta.
Her jaw tightened. She looked back down at her knees.
"I didn't have a pod," Goku said.
Both women looked at him.
Paragus's eyes narrowed.
"Baby Saiyans arrive in pods. We're sent out to conquer planets. There is no other way."
"Male Saiyans don't exist either," he added, after a moment. "And yet I'm here."
Paragus leaned her head back against the wall. Closed her eyes.
"My head hurts."
Broly made a small sound, content. Goku's thumb brushed her cheek.
Her face scrunched. Her hands let go of Goku's finger and went to his chest, grabbing at the fabric of his armor. Her mouth opened. She pressed her face forward and started sucking at his pec.
Goku looked down at her.
"There's nothing there."
Broly didn't agree. She kept trying. Working uselessly against the hard plate of muscle.
Then she pulled back and started to cry.
Goku sat her up on his palm, raised her to eye level. Looked at her face. Then across the pod.
"You're her mother."
Paragus lifted her eyes.
"Feed her."
He extended his arm. Broly balanced on his open hand, crying, reaching.
Paragus looked at the baby.
Then at him.
"I don't have any ration on me."
His eyes dropped.
To her chest.
"Those look full," he said. "Feed her. Like a good mother."
Her arms uncrossed.
"What did you say to me."
She sat forward. Her voice came up sharp.
"I don't care if you're a male Saiyan. I don't care if you killed the Colds. You don't give me orders."
Goku didn't answer.
He didn't lower his arm.
Broly was screaming now, twisting on his palm, reaching for her mother with both hands.
His eyes stayed on Paragus.
Her eyes wavered first. She felt the bead of sweat slide down her temple before she felt it form. Her chest was tight.
She broke the stare.
Looked at the wall.
"You're a Saiyan but you're not one of us," she said. Her voice was lower now. "We don't breastfeed our young. It's a sign of weakness. It makes them soft. Hunger forges the warrior. My daughter will be strong and tough."
She turned her face back to him.
"Find another way to feed her or let her learn."
"A Saiyan breastfeeding her child is a disgrace."
The Queen added.
"You heard her." Added Paragus.
Goku looked at the Queen.
Looked back at Paragus.
"I don't care about your rules."
His voice didn't rise. It just lost something. Whatever warmth had been there when he was playing with Broly was gone.
"Your customs. Your traditions. They mean nothing to me."
He extended Broly an inch further.
"Feed. Her."
Paragus felt it then.
Not in her mind.
In her body.
A wrongness at the base of her spine, the kind of signal a warrior gets before an ambush. Stop. Don't move. Comply.
Her warrior instincts, screaming at her.
She didn't understand. She wasn't outnumbered. She wasn't cornered. He hadn't moved. He hadn't raised his voice.
Her tail curled tight around her thigh.
*No. I am Paragus. Elite. I-*
She took a breath. Forced her shoulders straight. Met his eyes again.
"You are not a Saiyan. You may have the body of one. You may have done what no Saiyan has done. But you are not one of us. So tell me, Son Goku. Why should I obey you?"
She held.
She held.
And then, slowly, Goku lowered his arm.
Broly was still crying. He drew her back to his chest. His face was unreadable.
Paragus felt the air come back into her lungs.
A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
*Knew it. Loud mouth. Nothing to back it up. They're all the same.*
She let her shoulders relax.
Then it hit her.
Not a sound. Not a movement. Not a single thing she could point to.
Heat.
It filled her hips, pooled low in her belly, spread up her back in a way she had never, never, felt before in her life.
Her breath caught.
Her thighs pressed together without her permission.
*What.*
Her tail uncurled from her thigh and went flat to the floor. Her mouth went wet. Her pulse picked up in her wrists, her throat, between her legs.
She looked at him.
He hadn't moved. He was sitting the way he'd been sitting, Broly tucked back against his chest, watching her.
But the air around him had changed.
His shoulders looked broader than they had been a moment ago. The line of his jaw sharper. His hair, his neck, the way his armor caught the dim light along his collarbone. The hand holding Broly, large, scarred.
Her eyes dropped to his mouth.
*No.*
Stayed there.
*No, this isn't-*
She knew what it was.
She had seen it. Twice.
Saiyan biology. The instinct. When the body found a male stronger than itself, a male who could give a child a fighting chance, it announced itself.
She had never felt it.
In her entire life, she had never met a male who could trigger it. The instinct had stayed dormant in her, locked behind a door she had assumed would never open. She had begun to believe she lacked the wiring entirely. Some Saiyans did.
Apparently she did not.
Apparently she had simply never met him.
The heat in her belly intensified. Her vision narrowed. The pod, the Queen, the crying baby, all of it greyed at the edges and what remained, bright and immediate, was the man across from her.
Her breath was coming faster.
*He hasn't beaten me. He hasn't even fought me. He hasn't laid a hand on me. He only-*
He only looked at her.
He only spoke.
And her body had recognized something her mind was still trying to refuse.
The seat creaked. He shifted forward, just slightly, and her hips moved toward him in answer before she caught them. Her hand had risen from her knee and she didn't remember moving it. It hovered in the air between them, half-extended, fingers wanting.
His lips were right there.
She could close the distance.
She could press her mouth to his. She could feel the heat of him through his armor. She could climb across the cramped space and-
Her eyes flickered shut.
She started to lean.
Goku smiled.
Paragus's eyes snapped open.
The smile cut through her like cold water.
Heat of a different kind rushed up her neck.
Shame.
She drew back so hard her shoulder hit the wall.
"Put the Saiyan tradition to rest," Goku said, voice low, "and do me this favor."
He held Broly out again.
Paragus's arms moved. She took Broly against her chest, tucked her under her breast the way mothers do without being taught, and held her.
"I appreciate it."
Goku leaned back.
His eyes went up to the ceiling. One hand stayed loose on the seat. The other drifted to the control panel, fingertips tapping at the buttons.
The Queen's head turned. Then her gaze sharpened on Goku.
"Don't touch that."
Goku's fingers paused on the panel.
"Why."
"Because you don't know what any of those buttons do."
"They have to do something."
"Yes. And we are inside this pod when they do it."
A small smirk crossed his mouth. He lifted his hand. Put it behind his head.
The Queen kept her eyes on him.
He stretched.
"Both hands," she said. "Where I can see them."
"You don't trust me."
"I don't trust your curiosity."
Paragus heard them.
Her chest was still rising too fast. Her thighs were still pressed together. Her body had not gotten the message yet.
She pulled her leotard aside.
Broly latched at the first touch. The crying stopped instantly. The pod was suddenly, terribly quiet.
She looked down at her daughter.
Her daughter looked back. Eyes wide. Blinking. Already calming.
*A veteran.*
*I am a veteran.*
And this man.
This man who had not even fought her.
*He cannot beat me.*
*He has not beaten me.*
*And my body has already chosen him.*
Broly made a small, contented sound.
Paragus closed her eyes.
She did not look up for a long time.
Broly's eyes fluttered.
Her small mouth slowed against Paragus's breast, sucks growing further apart. Then her lashes lowered. Her tiny fist uncurled. Her breathing deepened.
She let go.
A drop of milk traced down her cheek.
The three of them looked at her.
"It's going to be a long trip," the Queen said.
"If we cross a planet in our trajectory," Goku said. "Otherwise it'll be an eternal one. Until we starve."
Paragus kept her eyes on the baby.
"We can use the sleep gas."
"Sleep gas?"
"I hope it didn't get damaged," the Queen muttered.
Paragus shifted Broly carefully into Goku's arm. Then Paragus pushed herself up, as much as she could in the cramped pod, and bent over him to reach the panel above his head.
Her breasts swung close to his face.
Goku watched them.
"I never liked milk."
"Bothered? Never seen one before?"
Her fingers were still searching the panel.
She pressed the button.
A soft hiss. Pale gas curled into the pod from the vents.
"There," Paragus said. "We should be good."
She lowered herself back down.
The Queen was already going.
The gas reached her first because she was the most ready to fall.
Her eyelids dropped. Her shoulder, pressed against Goku's, slid lower. Her head tilted. Then she let it settle against his thigh.
Paragus sat down across from him. Her own eyes were getting heavy.
Broly was a small warm weight in Goku's arm.
Paragus looked up at him once more.
Then her eyelids closed. She slumped sideways. Her head came to rest against his other thigh.
He had a Queen on one leg and a veteran on the other, and a baby on his arm.
The gas was working on him too.
He looked up at the ceiling. The pod hummed. The stars outside the small window were moving in lines, the way they did at speed.
His eyes grew heavy.
"Let's see where it will take us."
He let them close.
And the pod kept going.
Three ships traveled in different directions, each carrying what remained of the Saiyan race.
Eve's three weeks ended when her pod hit the planet where she and Goku had left the time machine. Before Soba had pulled her out of the dying world, Goku had told her to wait for him there. So now she would wait.
The three great ships carrying the Saiyans reached an unknown world in two weeks. They began to settle. To build. Bardock and the others worked the location systems, scanning for a signal from the pods, trying to find their Queen.
And in the last pod to leave Planet Vegeta, Goku and the others slept on.
---
Two more weeks passed in hibernation before the pod slipped into the orbit of an unknown planet.
Goku's eyes opened slowly.
Broly was asleep on his lap. Paragus and the Queen were slumped against him, against the walls, against each other, still under.
His stomach rumbled. Loud.
The sound dragged the other two up out of sleep, blinking, disoriented.
"Where are we?" the Queen muttered.
"We're about to land."
The pod tipped and began to fall.
It punched through the atmosphere and slammed into a stretch of grassland, the impact carving a wide crater into the earth. Paragus and the Queen were thrown hard, neither had been in a seat. Goku curled around Broly, shielding her. She woke and started to cry.
"Come on," she said. "Let us out. I want to stretch."
Goku put one boot against the door and pushed. The welded seam buckled, gave, and the door ejected outward, hitting the ground with a heavy thud.
Sunlight poured into the dark interior.
Goku climbed out first, Broly in his arms, straightening to his full height. His spine cracked as he stretched.
Paragus and the Queen followed.
"I need a bath," Goku said, walking toward the crater's edge.
"A bath." Paragus came up behind him. "You should revise your priorities, boy."
"Where are we?" the Queen asked.
Then Goku reached the top of the crater and saw where they'd landed.
Green plains rolling to the horizon. Clear rivers cutting through them. Lakes of still water. Mountains in the far distance.
"Heaven," Goku said.
The Queen's stomach growled.
Without a word she crossed to a nearby tree heavy with fruit, plucked one, bit into it. It was good.
A gentle breeze moved across Goku's face. He took a slow breath, held it, let it out.
"It feels good," he said. "Reminds me of the mountains. Where old Gohan found me."
"Tch." Paragus looked at the two of them. "How can you be so relaxed."
She lifted off the ground.
"I'm going to see if there's any civilization. Someone who can help us contact the ships."
She blasted off across the plains.
"So serious," Goku said, watching her go.
"She was an excellent soldier." The Queen's eyes followed the shrinking shape. "Always on duty. A model for every Saiyan girl."
"And yet you still exiled her and her child."
The Queen turned to him, frowning. "That matter does not concern you."
"You're right." Goku was mashing fruit between his fingers, feeding the pulp to Broly. "It doesn't."
They flew the area in silence.
Near the mountains they found pools of water steaming faintly in the cool air.
"Blegh." Broly grabbed her own nose.
"What's wrong?" Goku sniffed. Then his face changed. "Wait a minute. Is it-"
He dove toward the pools.
"What did you smell?" the Queen called, following.
He landed at the water's edge and inhaled.
"Sulfur." A wide smile spread across his face. "We found hot springs."
The Queen looked at him.
"This makes you that happy?"
"I'm going to have a smooth time tonight." Broly yanked his chin. "Gah- okay, okay. We're going to relax."
The Queen kept looking at him.
*Is this the one who annihilated Frieza and his family? He was so strong. So merciless. The perfect Saiyan.* Her eyes moved over his face, relaxed and grinning over a steaming pool. *And now he looks so harmless.*
"-egeta."
She was somewhere else.
"Mama Vegeta?"
His voice cut into her thoughts.
"Huh? What?" She blinked.
"Let's keep going." He lifted off.
"O-okay." She rose to follow. "And don't call me that. I am your Queen."
A few minutes on, they found a cave, dry, deep enough for shelter, room for a fire.
Goku set Broly down and she immediately began to explore, crawling along the cave floor, patting the stone. He stripped off his armor, leaving the bodysuit underneath. His stomach growled again.
"I'm starving. Fruit won't cut it."
"I saw no beasts on the way in," the Queen said. "Perhaps further out."
Then Goku felt it, Paragus's ki, returning.
She landed at the cave mouth with something enormous slung over one shoulder, a great horned animal like a bison. She crossed to the fire pit and dropped it.
"I covered hundreds of land-distances. No intelligent life anywhere." She straightened. "This planet may have no civilization at all."
"That's a problem." The Queen's jaw tightened. "The pod won't fly. The communication system is dead. We have no way to know where the rest of the Saiyans went."
Goku had already started skinning the beast, setting it over the fire to roast.
"I don't care about the other Saiyans," Paragus said. "I just want to get away."
The Queen's head turned.
"You dare turn your back on the empire that birthed you, Paragus? You want to get away?"
"Turn my back?" Paragus's voice was low. "You stabbed me in mine. You threatened to exile me, and then you left me and my daughter to die on a dying planet." A pause. "My Queen."
The Queen remained silent.
"You saw the readings the day my daughter was born. Higher than the Princess. Higher than any infant in generations."
"That child was unstable."
"And the Princess wasn't arrogant? Violent? Cruel?" Paragus took a step. "Those traits only became flaws when another child surpassed yours. You were jealous!"
The Queen's aura flickered, dangerous.
"You overestimate your bloodline."
"No." Paragus held her gaze. "You feared it."
"Fear?" The Queen's voice rose. "I am the Queen of all Saiyans!"
"Exactly." Paragus did not flinch. "And yet one infant made you question your daughter's future."
The Queen said nothing.
Paragus stepped closer.
"You looked at Broly and you didn't see a child. You saw the Princess standing in someone else's shadow."
"Enough."
"You hated her before she could speak."
"ENOUGH." The Queen's breath came hard. "That monster would have stolen everything from my daughter!"
Paragus smiled.
"There it is."
The Queen was breathing heavily now. "The royal line is destiny itself. The Princess was born to lead our people."
"And Broly was born stronger."
"Power without control is worthless!"
"No. Power without royal blood terrifies you."
"You think I would let my daughter kneel before some feral prodigy from a low house?!"
"So you condemned her."
"Princess Vegeta was meant to become the greatest warrior in Saiyan history!"
"And you could not bear knowing she never would."
"I will not hear another word about that girl from you."
Paragus lowered into a fighting stance.
"You already made sure she never got the chance to speak for herself."
By the fire, Goku tore a piece of meat off the roasting carcass and bit into it.
"If you want to fight," he said around the mouthful, "go outside."
The Queen started toward the cave mouth.
"Fine. Talk was never our way of settling things. Not for Saiyans." She paused at the entrance. "Step outside."
Paragus smirked. "At least we agree on that."
She followed.
Goku watched them go.
*Mama Vegeta's power is well above Paragus's,* he thought. *Let's see.*
He stood, took the meat with him, and followed them out.
They came to a flat stretch of plain.
Goku found a spot and sat down.
"I'll show you why I rule," the Queen said. She rolled her neck, the joints cracking, and dropped into her stance.
Paragus said nothing. She settled into her own.
The wind moved through the grass, bent the distant trees, lifted the loose strands of their hair.
And the two women faced each other.
The Queen stood perfectly still, hands clenched at her sides, a smirk curling across her lips. Confidence radiated off her like heat.
Paragus settled into her fighting stance. A bead of sweat traced a slow line down her temple. She knew the truth in her bones: her Queen was stronger than her, stronger than any Saiyan alive, at least until her daughter had been born.
*I have to use the terrain,* Paragus thought. *Experience is the only advantage I've got.*
The Queen looked confident, but her eyes kept drifting sideways, to where Goku sat, watching, a half-eaten meal in his hand.
Paragus dashed.
She moved at a speed that split the wind, the gust of her charge flattening the grass in a long rippling line behind her. The Queen was still looking at Goku. A twitch crossed her face as she registered what was happening, but too late. Paragus was already in front of her, fist balled and rising toward her jaw.
Boom!. Square on the face.
The Queen's upper body folded backward, arms flung wide.
*I felt it!*
Paragus's heart leapt.
*I felt it travel up my arm, into my shoulder- this impact is real!*
A grin began to spread across her face.
Then something registered as wrong.
She looked down. The Queen's legs hadn't moved an inch. Her feet were planted exactly where they'd started, rooted to the earth as though the punch had been a breeze. Paragus's grin died. Her eyes went wide. She looked up.
Goku stopped mid-bite, one eyebrow lifting. "You got hit by that?" he said, a smirk in his voice.
The Queen's eyes flew open. Color rushed to her cheeks, humiliation, sharp and immediate.
And then Paragus felt it: her own arm being driven back. The Queen was lifting her torso upright again, with Paragus's fist still buried against her face, pushing through it. Her expression had transformed. Eyebrows angled into a hard V, eyes blown wide, every line of her face burning with rage.
She rolled the motion into a punch and brought her fist down from above.
Paragus finally snapped free of her shock. "Shi-"
Too late. The blow landed in the exact same spot she'd struck the Queen, only this time it came crashing down from overhead. BOOM!. Her face deformed under the impact, blood bursting from her nose. The Queen didn't stop. She kept driving, pressing down with raw force until Paragus was blasted into the ground, bouncing off the earth from the sheer power of it.
*This is the Queen's strength?!* Paragus could barely hold onto consciousness. *I can hardly stay awake, huh?!*
She focused her gaze around. Another punch was already falling, the Queen's eyes blazing a furious red, inhabited by something feral. *If I don't protect myself right now, I'm getting knocked out!* Paragus threw her arm up against the side of her head and BOOM! the force of the blow drove through her guard and into her shoulder, slamming her down and tearing open a crater beneath her. She clenched her teeth against the pain.
No time to feel it. Another punch was coming.
She turned to face it and locked her arms into a cross guard, tougher than a normal block, built to hold. The Queen kept pummeling, each strike detonating against her forearms, flattening the grass in rings around them, hammering her deeper and deeper into the crater with every hit.
Behind them, Goku still sat. He leaned forward, head resting on his palm, and smirked.
*Saiyans are so easy to manipulate,* he thought. *No reasoning. Just raw emotion.*
The barrage continued, one blow after another. Paragus's forearms purpled with bruises, and her own guard kept driving back into her face. *I have to do something- I can feel myself slipping.*
Then the Queen wound up. Half a second longer than the rest.
*That's it. That's my chance.*
The Queen threw the punch, aiming straight for her face. Paragus saw it coming and snapped her head to the side. The fist grazed her cheek, friction tearing a bruise into the skin, a thread of smoke curling off it, and buried itself in the ground, knuckles digging deep into the dirt.
"I've got you!"
Paragus wrapped both arms around the trapped limb, slung one leg behind the Queen's neck and locked the other across her chest.
"What the-?!" The Queen's eyes shot wide.
Goku's head lifted off his hand. Genuine surprise. "Is that jiujitsu? She caught her in a triangle choke!"
The Queen surged upward, dragging Paragus with her, but Paragus held on, the Queen's arm clamped in her grip, her head wedged between Paragus's thighs. Twisting for leverage, the Queen began landing liver shots, but the angle was wrong and the punches had no real power behind them.
Frustrated, she snarled. "And then what? You going to just keep clinging to me like a tick?"
Paragus met her eyes. "Not like a tick." She tightened her thighs. "Like a python."
She squeezed and rotated her whole body, channeling every ounce of strength into bending the Queen sideways. From the Queen's vantage the mountains and clouds began to wheel, ground and sky trading places, her balance unraveling. One foot lifted from the earth, and in that tilting instant she caught a glimpse of Goku, sideways in her vision, watching them with interest.
She snapped out of it. "Don't get cocky!"
Teeth clenched, she widened her stance, planted both feet and flexed every muscle in her legs. BOOM. The ground shattered beneath their combined weight.
She glared at Paragus. "Power is everything."
Paragus only smirked.
The smirk made the Queen's eyebrows climb.
"Power without technique," Paragus said, "is meaningless."
Her tail uncoiled, whipped out, hooked the Queen's ankle, and pulled.
"Wh… at…" The Queen's base vanished out from under her, her support swept clean away.
Paragus rotated her hips with everything she had, hauling the Queen down toward the earth.
"FALL!!!"
The Queen slammed onto her side with devastating impact. A massive crater erupted beneath her, a wall of dust, shattered rock, and torn grass exploding upward into a towering cloud. The ground heaved from the force of the takedown.
"Impressive," Goku said.
As the dust began to thin, the two women came back into view inside a fresh crater, Paragus flat on her back, the Queen locked in the triangle choke, her thighs crushing inward with all the strength she had left.
The Queen's face was frozen in disbelief. *How is this possible? I'm so much stronger than her. My power level exceeds hers, how? How?!* She could feel herself going under, the choke dragging her down, her vision beginning to black at the edges. Sleep was reaching up to take her.
And then a voice. Smooth, low, a faint smile threaded through it.
"Is that all?"
She snapped back from the edge. *He's watching. I have to, I have to prove it to him. That I'm worthy.*
Paragus's eyes twitched at the shift in her.
The Queen's free hand clawed at the thigh crushing her throat and pulled. Nothing moved. Like a python, Paragus only suffocated her tighter.
*I have to do something. He… he… Goku. Goku…*
His name pulled the memory loose. His fight against Frieza, before he'd turned Super Saiyan, back when Frieza was the stronger. And still Goku had dominated him. Not with power. With technique.
*Stay calm,* she told herself.
And then it hit her.
Paragus was wrenching the trapped arm, working to snap it even as she choked her out. "Give up, your Majesty! Kneel and beg me for forgiveness!"
The Queen's hand opened, palm spreading wide directly in front of Paragus's face.
"Huh?!"
A ki ball flared to life in her palm.
"You'd better dodge, Paragus!"
Paragus's eyes blew wide with realization.
"HAAAAAAAA!" The Queen unleashed it.
Paragus threw her upper body sideways, the blast searing past and scorching a shallow burn across her cheek. But the dodge cost her, her grip loosened just enough. The Queen tore free, scrambling back. Paragus rolled clear and rose to her feet.
The two women stood facing each other once more.
The Queen's chest heaving, throat ringed with deep bruises where Paragus's thighs had been locked moments before. Across from her, Paragus pressed her fingers to the fresh, smoking burn on her cheek, forearms purpled and weeping blood from the earlier barrage.
*Her power is no joke,* Paragus thought, wiping the blood still leaking from her nose. *The gap between us isn't something I should be playing with. I can't keep brute-forcing this, she's experienced. I have to think.*
The Queen rubbed her throat, still raw from the choke. *Calm down. Think.*
They stared at each other, eyes locked. The world fell away around them, the mountains, the grass, the sky, all of it gone. Fists clenched. Legs coiled. Weight up on the balls of their feet, ready to launch.
BOOM! Both of them blasted forward at once, dust erupting in their wake, closing the gap in a heartbeat-
"Alright, that's enough."
They twitched mid-flight, heads snapping toward the voice, and crashed straight into each other, tumbling to the ground in a tangle.
Goku stood, tossing the stripped bone of his last piece of meat over his shoulder. "That was fun to watch while I ate."
The women pushed up onto their knees, staring at him, eyes wide.
"Fun to watch-?"
"-while you ate?"
Goku turned his back to them, raised his arms, and stretched with a satisfied groan. "Yeah. Anyway, I'm gonna go enjoy some hot springs. You two wanna come?"
The Queen let her shoulders drop. "Entertainment, huh." She rose to her feet, slow and weary. "Our level is just dinner theater to him."
But Paragus stayed down, eyes fixed on the grass, fists balled tight in the dirt. "You think I'm here to amuse you?" She lifted her head, and her face was a knot of rage and humiliation. "You think I'm a performance?"
Goku stopped stretching and glanced back.
Paragus surged to her feet. "Don't get cocky, male." She spat the word like an insult. "I don't take orders. Not from you. Not from some weakling who plays nursemaid to babies." Her lip curled. "And I don't believe you beat Frieza, or his family, or any of it. I don't even believe you're a Saiyan, male Saiyans don't exist." She widened her stance. "I've had enough of you. I'll finish you right here."
Behind her, the Queen crossed her arms. "Calm down and think. You're making a mistake."
Paragus didn't turn. "What's wrong… Vegeta?" The name dripped with contempt. "Did that throne soften your spine? Letting others do your fighting for you, it's made you weak."
The Queen's eyes narrowed to slits. "Insolent fool." A beat. "…Fine. I'll let you provoke me." And she slid into a fighting stance of her own, gaze fixed on Goku.
Goku stood with one hand resting on his full stomach. "Don't even think about it. I ate way too much, I can barely move."
"To tell you the truth, Son Goku," the Queen said, "I've always wanted to test my strength against you."
Goku sighed. "Okay… but on one condition. When I win-"
"If," the Queen cut in.
"-you two get along." He finished as if she hadn't spoken.
"Men should just obey us and keep quiet," Paragus muttered.
Goku rubbed the back of his head, already exasperated. "Here we go."
Then he faced them.
And everything changed, or did it? Nothing about him moved. But for Paragus and the Queen the very air turned to lead, pressure bearing down on their shoulders as though the sky itself meant to crush them. Sweat broke across their skin with no exertion to explain it. The man in front of them seemed suddenly enormous, a figure that blotted out the horizon.
But it was only Goku. Nothing more. Just Goku, taking the fight seriously.
Paragus slapped herself across the face and shot forward like a bullet. Behind her the Queen launched too, faster, far faster, and they arrived on him at the same instant, one on each side.
Goku didn't move.
"Got you!" Both fists drove in.
Then, a blur.
Goku's right arm snapped out into Paragus's path and closed around her throat, stopping her dead like a wall. On his left, the Queen caught the motion of his other arm rising at the edge of her vision. "SHIT!" She threw her guard up and braced-
Goku flicked one finger against it.
It hit like a battering ram. Her guard caved inward, her own arms slamming back into her face before the force launched her tumbling backward across the plain.
He turned his head, unhurried, toward Paragus dangling from his fist. Her teeth ground together; she couldn't move an inch.
"Like I said!" she snarled. "Power without technique is meaningless!"
And she did it again, legs whipping up around Goku's neck, arm hugged tight, the triangle choke locked in, squeezing with everything she had left, hauling to tip him off balance…
Her eyes went wide.
The technique that had folded the Queen, that had put a being stronger than her into the dirt, it didn't move this man. Not an inch. Not even the ghost of a struggle. She looked into his eyes and found them gazing back, calm, looking through her. And in that moment she was ready to believe every story anyone had ever told about him. She felt like an infant held in a parent's arms, her whole future hanging on nothing more than his mood.
*He's… on a completely different-*
"Power without technique is meaningless," Goku said mildly. "But technique without enough power doesn't mean much either."
Her grip went slack. "I… I give u-"
"*HAAAAAAAA!*"
Paragus snapped back at the shout and twisted toward it, the Queen, hurling a ki wave straight at Goku.
He raised his free arm and, just as before, flicked his finger. A blade of sharp wind tore out, punched a clean hole through the center of the wave, and struck the Queen square in the face.
In the same instant he was there, next to the Queen, hand closing around her throat too.
Now he held them both, one in each hand.
Paragus had already surrendered, but the Queen was still fighting, still reaching for anything.
"Don't give up now!" the Queen forced out. "Even if it's hopeless, you're a Saiyan!"
Paragus looked at her. Something surged through her chest, and she began to struggle again.
"I appreciate the resilience," Goku said. "You've earned my respect."
Then he slammed them both into the ground.
The impact detonated across the plain. A shockwave rolled outward through the grasslands. Birds erupted from forests miles away. The earth split. Both women's eyes bulged, mouths wide, spit flying.
*He's… worthy,* Paragus thought.
And then darkness.
…
…
…
"Mamamamama!"
A tiny slap. Then laughter, high, bright.
Paragus's eyes opened.
Dark blue sky. Stars, thousands of them, thick as dust, smeared across the heavens in bands she didn't recognize.
A small shape moved into her periphery. Round face. Wide eyes. A gummy smile.
Broly patted her cheek.
"Mamamamama!"
Paragus sat up fast, too fast. Her ribs screamed. Her neck locked. Every muscle in her body reported damage at once.
Beside her, the Queen groaned and pushed herself upright, one hand cradling the side of her head.
"How long were we out?"
Paragus looked at the sky. The sun was gone. Hours, at least.
They looked at each other. Then down at themselves.
The Queen's bodysuit was in ribbons.
Paragus wasn't any better. Her leotard had split across the back and along one thigh.
Steam drifted past them. Warm, sulfurous, curling through the night air in slow ribbons.
The hot springs.
Paragus turned her head.
There he was.
Goku sat chest-deep in the largest pool, his back against a flat rock, head tilted up toward the stars. His arms were spread along the stone rim. His eyes were half-closed. Steam rose around him in lazy spirals, catching the starlight.
Broly floated beside him on the surface, arms and legs spread wide like a little starfish, babbling contentedly at the sky.
"Ahhhhh~" He let out a long, satisfied breath. "This is heaven."
Neither woman spoke.
He rolled his head to the side and looked at them.
"Finally awake." A lazy grin. "Go rinse up and come relax."
They stood there. Bruised, filthy, torn open in every sense, staring at the man who had put them down with a flick and a slam and was now soaking in hot water like it was a holiday.
Paragus was the first to move. She started walking toward the spring.
Goku's eyes opened fully. His brow creased.
"Hey. What do you think you're doing?"
"Entering the bath."
"Oh no you don't." He sat up, visibly irritated. "Go wash your dirty feet in that water over there first and then come relax in here."
"Dirty fe-"
She stopped.
The word died in her throat.
She closed her mouth.
Without another word, she reached down and ripped what was left of her leotard and walked toward the pond where the Queen was already heading.
Goku watched her go.
*She's more docile already.* He leaned his head back against the rock and closed his eyes. *Saiyans are simple creatures. The strongest one's word is absolute.* A small breath through his nose. *At least now we know where we stand.*
Broly splashed.
He closed his eyes. The steam curled against his face, warm and heavy, and for a moment the noise fell away.
*Eve… She'd be there by now. I don't know how far we are, could be a galaxy away, could be ten. I don't even know how long we were asleep in that pod. Two weeks? Three?*
His fingers drummed once against the stone.
*Think.*
*I need to get back to her.*
He heard the water shift.
He opened his eyes.
They were walking toward the spring. Naked. Wet from the pond.
Paragus, caramel skin glistening, round full breasts sitting high on her chest, barely moving as she walked. Hips rolling, thighs thick enough to crush stone. Scars everywhere and none of them made her less to look at. His eyes followed the water still sliding down her abs.
The Queen beside her, pale, softer, fuller. Breasts hanging low and heavy, bouncing with each step over the rocks. Wide hips. The kind of body that still turned heads even after years on a throne.
Neither of them looked away from him.
He smirked.
"There. That's your first effective attack."
The Queen rolled her eyes.
Paragus blinked. "Attack?"
She looked down at her body. Then back at him.
Then she understood. Her fist clenched at her side.
They stepped in and sank to their chins, the hot water swallowing everything he'd just been looking at.
There was still animosity between the two women. They sat back to back, shoulders rigid, neither willing to give an inch even in rest.
---
---
Days had passed since they'd landed on the unnamed planet. No ships overhead. No signals. No rescue. Just green plains, hot springs, and silence.
They'd settled into something that wasn't quite survival and wasn't quite living. Goku trained every morning on the plains, the shockwaves from his strikes echoed off the mountains like distant thunder. He hunted with Paragus in the afternoons and played with Broly in the evenings.
Paragus skinned one of the horned beasts, stretched the hide over hot rocks, scraped it clean, and cut rough pieces from it. Crude wraps. Chest bindings. Lower coverings held together with strips of sinew.
They looked savage. Primal. Saiyans wrapped in fur and pelt, muscle on display, scars visible, tails swinging free. Like their ancestors.
The animosity between Paragus and the Queen hadn't disappeared. But it had shifted. Pointed somewhere else.
Toward Goku.
Their common enemy. The mountain neither of them could move. The man who made them cook, made them care for a baby, made them sit at the same fire and eat the same food and sleep in the same cave.
From time to time, Paragus challenged him. She'd drop into her stance and come at him with everything she had, hoping, for what, she couldn't quite name. It always ended the same way. A blur. A hand around her throat or her wrist or her waist. The ground rushing up. Then darkness.
She'd wake hours later. Bruised. Beaten.
And find herself waiting for the next time.
—
One evening, Goku took Broly to the hot springs.
Paragus and the Queen were alone in the cave. The fire crackled low. Paragus sat cross-legged near the entrance, fiddling with the shattered communication panel she'd pulled from the pod. The Queen sat on a flat rock near the fire, turning strips of meat over the flames.
She seemed nervous.
Her tail kept curling and uncurling behind her.
Finally, she swallowed whatever pride was blocking her throat.
"Who is the father of Broly?"
She didn't look up from the meat.
Paragus's hands paused on the device. She twitched. Resumed working.
"What is this all of a sudden."
"Nothing. Just making conversation."
"Conversation?" Paragus glanced sideways. "This Son Goku has made you soft, Your Majesty."
"Well..." The Queen's voice dropped to a murmur. "When you have something to rely on..."
"What's that?"
"Just answer. Who is the father? He must be strong to have produced a child this powerful."
Paragus looked at her. Then back at the device.
"Not at all. He was from some blob race. Weak."
The Queen frowned. "What? Why would you mate with a weakling? I thought you of all Saiyans would never entertain a weak male, knowing your hatred for men."
Paragus's fingers stopped moving.
"That's exactly why." Her voice was flat. Controlled. "I hate men. I despise them. And I hated the feeling I got, wanting to be a mother. Wanting to be proud of something I made. So I chose the least thing that resembled a man and had him make me a mother." She turned a wire between her fingers. "Their mating ritual was strange. He rubbed his head against my belly. A month later I was pregnant with Broly." A pause. "I still don't know why she's so strong."
She looked up.
The Queen was staring at her. Mouth slightly open. Surprise written across her face.
"What's with that look?" Paragus said.
The Queen turned back to the fire. "Never heard you talk that much."
"Tch."
Silence. The fire popped.
"It was almost the same when I had my daughter," the Queen said. Quieter now. "I fought a strong alien and I mated with him. He was like an octopus, his antennae attached to my temples. I was in a trance. Then I was pregnant." She turned a strip of meat. "Since then I've never mated again. Didn't want to."
"And?" Paragus raised an eyebrow. "You've never had pleasure with a slave?"
"I am the Queen of all Saiyans." Her voice stiffened. "Taking a slave to mate with is beneath me. And the last time I mated it was horrible. Why would I do it again for pleasure?"
Paragus stared at her.
*She thinks all mating is like that? Our Queen is quite naive.*
The Queen shifted on her rock. Her hand drifted to her lower belly. Pressed against it. Her expression changed, something uncertain crossing her face, something she clearly wasn't used to feeling.
"Recently I feel strange," she said. "It tingles."
"Tingles? Where?"
"Be..." The word died. She swallowed. "...legs."
"What?"
"Between my legs!" The Queen's voice snapped louder than she intended.
Paragus stopped fiddling with the device entirely. She set it down. Looked at the Queen, sitting regal on her rock, fur wrap tight across her chest, jaw set, legs pressed together, the very picture of royal dignity.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" the Queen said.
Paragus glanced past her shoulder. Her eyes went wide.
"Son Goku!"
The Queen's reaction was instant. Her thighs clamped together. Her spine straightened. Her chin lifted. She whipped around to look.
Nothing. Empty cave entrance. Stars outside.
She turned back slowly. Paragus was looking at her with flat, knowing eyes.
"Pa. Ra. Gus."
"It's simple." Paragus crossed her arms. "I can't believe I have to explain this to my Queen. Your body is desiring to mate with that male."
"Huh- what?!" The Queen's composure cracked. "How did you come to that conclusion?!"
"I should have seen it coming. Even if I don't want to admit it, he's beaten us. Both of us. Our instinct wants us to mate with the stronger one. That's how it works."
"Impossible!" The Queen leaned forward. "When I fought that alien I mated with, I didn't feel this, this urge, this sensation."
"You said he was strong. You didn't say he was stronger than you. You didn't say he'd beaten you."
The Queen went still.
"...That's true."
Her voice was small. A rare sound.
"So I didn't see it happening to me. So..." She looked at the fire. "I want him to be the father of my next child?"
A beat.
"And you?" she added, eyes cutting to Paragus. "He's beaten you too."
Paragus stopped breathing for a half-second.
*Yeah. My body craves him. Since the pod. He just looked at me and my instinct kicked in. And the more I fight him, the more I want him. Every time I wake up after he puts me down, it's worse.*
*But I won't let it happen. I'm the master of my body.*
"I suppose my hatred for men is stronger than my Saiyan instinct," Paragus said.
"What did men do to you?"
A low, deep voice echoed through the cave.
Both women twitched. Their heads snapped toward the entrance.
Standing there, tall, filling the frame, Goku. Broly sat on his shoulders, tiny hands gripping his hair, her legs dangling against his chest.
Both the Queen and Paragus looked away at the same time. Every word they'd just spoken rolling through their heads at once.
Paragus stood. Her face set hard. She crossed to Goku and lifted Broly off his shoulders.
"You've softened her too much. I need to toughen her up."
She walked past him and flew out of the cave without looking back.
---
Goku looked at Paragus flying away with Broly in her arms, shrinking into the night sky.
Behind him, the Queen was staring at his back.
Her mind was racing. The conversation with Paragus looped through her head, *your body is desiring to mate with that male*, and the tingling was back.
Worse than before. Her breath had gone uneven. Her cheeks were burning. That warmth in her lower belly was spreading, pulsing, and her thighs pressed together on their own.
*Again?! What is happening to me... I can't focus with this feeling, every time!*
"Mama Vegeta? Are you good?"
His voice cut through her thoughts like cold water. He was walking toward the fire, sitting on the ground, leaning back against a tree trunk. Casual. Relaxed.
"Mama-?!" She straightened. "Don't call me that! I am your Queen. It's Your Majesty for you. Even if you are strong, I am still your Queen."
"Yeah, yeah."
He looked toward the cave entrance. The fire crackled between them. A long silence settled.
Then-
"Son Goku~"
He turned.
She was lying on the bedroll of animal skin and fur. Half-lidded eyes locked on his, dark and glassy, a hint of uncertainty, a drunk, heavy wanting she couldn't hide anymore. Her cheeks were flushed pink. Her lips were parted. Her breath came in slow, hot waves, almost steaming in the cool cave air.
Her hand drifted to her chest.
The fur wrap was tight against her, pushing her breasts up, the fabric straining. Her thumb and index finger found the knot at the center. She pinched it. Pulled.
The wrap fell open.
Her breasts dropped free, heavy, full, falling to each side with a soft bounce, the weight of them clapping gently against her ribs. The loose fur slid across her chest, dragging slow, revealing where the skin changed, the color deepening, the texture shifting from smooth to something puckered and darker at the edges, just barely visible past the fabric still clinging to her.
Her breathing got worse. Faster. Heavier.
A bead of sweat formed at the hollow of her throat. It swelled. Broke free. Traced a slow line down between her collarbones, followed the valley between her breasts, and dropped into her navel.
Her hand followed the same path.
Down her stomach. To the rudimentary belt at her waist. Her thumb hooked under the rough leather. Loosened it. Pulled the lower garment down, slow, revealing the soft curve of her lower belly, pale, the skin there untouched by sun or scar. Then lower. Subtle black dots became visible against the pale skin, thickening as the fabric slid further.
Her knee came up. Instinct. Blocking the view right at the edge of everything.
Goku watched her. Silent. His face unreadable.
She held his gaze. Then she raised both arms toward him. Fingers open. Reaching.
That smile, soft, warm, flushed, certain and uncertain at the same time.
"Come to me~"
---
High above the plains, Paragus hovered in the dark.
Broly was asleep in her arms. Mouth open. Drooling on her shoulder.
Paragus looked down at her.
"Tch. She has no care in the world." She adjusted the baby against her chest. "He's made you soft... Son Goku..."
"Let's head back. You're not in any state to train."
She turned toward the cave and flew.