Ashes of Kings 

In the dim-lit council chamber, silence clung like a veil. 

Screens flickered with distant images—satellite feeds, intercepted transmissions, fragments of cosmic disaster. The holograms before the Xalurei flickered between collapsing terrain, ruptured magma, and the final image that had made its way across half the galaxy before vanishing into the black— 

Planet Vegeta, gone. 

"Confirmed. No more than five seconds between core destabilization and total annihilation," muttered Juil, her voice devoid of emotion but not free from weight. "The Saiyan homeworld is destroyed." 

"Mass extinction," Noen added. "Less than two percent of the species remains. Survivors scattered. No significant organized force detected." 

The scientists stood in a semicircle, not around a body or a relic—but around the image of absence. A dead world. A closed chapter in galactic history. A race bred for war, gone. 

"Frieza made his move," said Kirel from the far end, arms crossed behind his back. "He feared their growth. Their numbers. Their potential." 

"A tyrant removing a future threat," someone muttered. 

"No…" Kirel corrected. "A tyrant doing what we only pretended we'd never have to." 

Noen looked up from the report. "You think we'll be next?" 

Kirel didn't answer. His gaze shifted to a separate monitor, displaying the nursery chamber below—where he slept. 

Still breathing. Still small. 

But power continued to radiate from the child in unpredictable pulses—sometimes weak, almost nothing… and other times, enough to send brief quakes through the entire facility's power grid. 

"This extinction wasn't a warning," Kirel said. "It was a reminder. That beings with too much power are either used… or destroyed." 

 They turned their attention to the data once again—traces of Saiyan energy signatures found in random quadrants of the galaxy. A few were infants. One pod had crash-landed on a blue planet in a quiet solar system. Another was reportedly intercepted by Frieza's men and discarded. The rest… unclear. 

But it wasn't the surviving Saiyans they feared. 

It was the one they had created. 

 "Have the energy flares subsided?" asked Juil, motioning to the lifeform's vitals. 

"For now," Noen said. "But his core ki is… strange. It adapts." 

Kirel stepped closer to the feed. 

"Explain." 

"It's like it… shifts. Adopts surrounding energy patterns. Like a chameleon, but with ki. When the outbursts happen, it's not just his power rising—it's like he's channeling others. Briefly. Uncontrollably." 

Noen hesitated. 

"There was even a moment yesterday when his ki signature matched that of a Saiyan. Not entirely… but it was unmistakable." 

Kirel didn't blink. "And before that?" 

"A Frost Demon spike. Then something similar to Namekian… followed by a completely unknown pattern." 

"…It's already beginning." 

 Down below, in the cradle of steel and glass, the child shifted in his sleep. 

Not dreaming this time. 

Not screaming. 

Just sensing. 

Far beyond the walls of his chamber, across stars and shattered systems, something called to him. 

A quiet hum. 

A pull. 

The death of the Saiyans had rippled through the universe like a thrown stone into still water. Most beings would never notice. 

But he wasn't like most beings. 

He felt it. 

 Back in the council chamber, the discussion turned to ethics. As it always did, far too late. 

"We were curious," said one of the elder minds. "That was our flaw. We never asked if we should, only if we could." 

"Curiosity isn't a flaw," Juil argued. "It's survival. Exploration. Progress. Without it, we'd still be staring up at the stars and calling them gods." 

"Yet we've created something the gods themselves would fear." 

The silence returned, heavier than before. 

And then Kirel spoke, quietly. 

"He'll outlive us all." 

The others turned. 

"He'll survive this facility. This planet. This era. Even the tyrants who fear potential… He'll surpass them, if he chooses to." 

"And if he doesn't?" 

Kirel glanced once more at the monitor. 

"Then something far worse will take his place." 

 They didn't notice the flicker in the child's eyes as he awoke—brief, unfocused, but conscious. 

For the first time since his creation, he didn't just react to the world. 

He observed it. 

The child blinked, vision blurry, the world around him swimming in strange shapes and muted lights. For the first time, he lifted his arms—small, weak, uncoordinated. His fingers curled, grasped at air. A strange warmth bloomed in his chest. He didn't know the word for it. He didn't even know words. But the feeling surged like sunlight through his veins. 

Joy. 

There was no logic to it. No reason. No outside stimulus. It simply… emerged. 

He giggled. 

And the walls of the chamber lit up with streaks of brilliant, multicolored ki. 

The monitors screamed. 

The room—so often cold, dim, and sterile—was suddenly filled with light. Not the light of fire or heat or radiation. It shimmered like an aurora—green and gold and soft pink, curling in the air like silk. 

The plants in the hydroponic tanks just outside the chamber surged upright. 

Cracked circuits repaired themselves with a soft hum. 

Energy readings spiked in a way none of the sensors could interpret. It wasn't aggression. It wasn't destructive. 

It was like the universe itself had exhaled through the boy's lungs. 

 Alarms blared, but no damage was reported. 

Instead, reports came in of rejuvenation. 

The sickened animal samples in the facility's lower labs began to recover. 

Dormant energy crystals flared to life again. 

And the scientists… felt something, too. 

Juil clutched her chest. "My breathing… the tightness—it's gone." 

Noen blinked. "My vision… I've had neural strain since last cycle, but now—" 

"Vitals throughout the station are stabilizing," a console AI reported. "Environmental filters improved by 11.7%. No explanation. No anomaly detected. All readings trace back to Sector Theta." 

The nursery. 

 Kirel didn't move at first. 

He watched the boy on the monitor, arms stretched upward, laughing softly as streaks of gold shimmered through the air around him. 

There was no logic to this. 

No programming. No conditioning. They hadn't even taught him emotion. 

And yet, there it was. 

Happiness. 

Unfiltered. 

Unrefined. 

And undeniably powerful. 

 "He's… healing us," Juil whispered. 

Noen backed away, eyes wide. "That shouldn't be possible. We didn't program regenerative projection. Majin tissue should only allow for self-regeneration, not—" 

"You're still trying to define him by limits," Kirel interrupted. "We stitched together chaos and hoped it would sleep. But chaos is not only fire and ruin." 

They watched as the boy suddenly stopped laughing—looking down at his hands, fascinated, as the light slowly faded. 

He wasn't tired. 

He was curious. 

And that, perhaps, was the most dangerous part of all. 

 Later, during debrief, the incident was labeled a "non-aggressive ki pulse." 

No formal theories were agreed upon. 

Some believed it was a side effect of latent Namekian genes—connected to their spiritual healing traditions. 

Others feared it was simply another mutation—an accident of genetic splicing producing results they were never meant to witness. 

But one scientist, during the final report, posed the question no one wanted to answer: 

"If this is how he laughs… what happens when he loves?" 

 Kirel stood alone again in the observation deck. 

He looked out at the boy, now asleep once more, his ki gently humming around him. 

Kirel didn't smile. 

He looked tired. 

"This child… he could become a god," he said quietly to himself. 

"Or he could become something the gods can't comprehend." 

His reflection in the glass shimmered—warped slightly by the residual energy still hanging in the air. 

He thought of Planet Vegeta. 

Of kings reduced to atoms. 

Of power that ruled by fear. 

And now… a power that could heal without understanding it. 

"Creation and destruction… in the same heartbeat." 

He turned from the window and walked into the dark.